Following compromising several internal communications and engineering systems, the ride-hailing service, Uber, declared that it was conducting an investigation.
After the hacker gave pictures of the email, cloud storage, and code repositories to the media, the New York Times was the first to publish the intrusion.
According to the story, which cited two employees, Uber employees were instructed not to use Slack’s business messaging platform.
Employees at Uber got a message stating: “I announce I am a hacker, and Uber has suffered a data breach,” just before the Slack system was shut down.
Publishing an explicit photo on an internal information page for employees suggested that the hacker could later access additional internal systems.
Uber claimed that it had spoken to the authorities about the issue.
No evidence has been found that the hack has harmed Uber’s customer base, vehicle fleet, or payment information.
California-based website for bug bounties called HackerOne receives a subscription fee from Uber. In addition, many large corporations employ bug bounty programs, which essentially pay ethical hackers to find bugs.
Sam Curry, one of the bug bounty hunters, spoke with the Uber hacker. He replied, “It feels like they’ve compromised a lot of things.
Mr. Curry spoke with numerous Uber staff members who indicated they were “trying to lock down everything internally” to limit the hacker’s access.
He claimed there was no evidence the hacker had caused any harm or was motivated by anything other than notoriety.
According to Chris Evans, a chief hacking officer at HackerOne, “We’re in close communication with Uber’s security team, have shut down their data, and will continue to assist with their investigation.”
Who took responsibility for the hack?
The BBC has seen texts from someone claiming to be in charge of many Uber admin accounts.
According to the New York Times, the hacker, who is 18 years old, had been honing his cyber-security abilities for some years and broke into the Uber networks because “they had insufficient protection.”
The individual also advocated for increased pay for Uber drivers in the Slack message that reported the breach.
The adage “people are the weakest link” in cybersecurity is true once more, and this incident demonstrates that an employee who was duped allowed the thieves in.
The adage is accurate, but it’s also really cruel.
The image that is emerging here demonstrates the high level of motivation and expertise of this hacker.
As seen by recent Okta, Microsoft, and Twitter hacks, youthful hackers with plenty of free time and a carefree attitude can convince even the most cautious staff to make cyber-security mistakes.
Ask prominent ex-hacker Kevin Mitnick, who used charm to get around telephone networks in the 1970s, and you’ll learn that this hacking method through social engineering is older than computers.
The difference today is that hackers may combine their wits with highly developed, user-friendly tools to make their jobs even simpler.
Uber has the tool to help businesses in reducing their carbon footprint
Measuring carbon emissions is the first step in a company’s effort to reduce them. On Monday, Uber launched a new feature to let businesses track emissions when staff members ride for work-related purposes.
Uber is used to transporting personnel by almost 170,000 businesses. They now get access to some sustainability insights on the Uber for Business dashboard that the company provided only with Protocol. According to Susan Anderson, global head of the company’s business division, that dashboard can assist corporate clients in “track, report and act on their ground transportation impacts globally.”
The updated features give details on how many low-emission trips a client’s employees have taken, the company’s overall emissions from all rides, and the typical grams of carbon dioxide emitted each mile. Clients might utilize this information as corporate travel picks back up to better understand the environmental impact of employees hailing cabs for business trips or to and from events, and they could establish goals for lowering those emissions.
