Uber says users' personal data like phone numbers, trip history were not compromised in breach

Uber reportedly suffered a data breach after an 18-year-old hacker gained illegal access to the company's workplace messaging app Slack. After conducting an investigation, Uber has now confirmed that there is no evidence that the personal data of users such as their trip history, phone numbers etc were compromised in the data breach. Soon after Uber came to know about the breach, the company took off Slack and also temporarily suspended some of its internal systems.

A hacker, on Thursday, informed Uber that he had hacked into the workplace messaging app of the company. The hacker first targeted an employee, tricked him into sharing his password, then used his account to send a message to other employees informing them that the Uber systems had suffered a data breach. He posted an explicit picture of an internal information page for employees. "I announce I am a hacker and Uber has suffered a data breach. Slack has been stolen..." the hacker wrote on Slack. Uber soon took several of its internal systems offline, including Slack, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform. The company has now confirmed that all its services are now operational.

"We have no evidence that the incident involved access to sensitive user data (like trip history).All of our services including Uber, Uber Eats, Uber Freight, and the Uber Driver app are operational.As we shared yesterday, we have notified law enforcement.Internal software tools that we took down as a precaution yesterday are coming back online this morning," Uber said in a blog post. However, Uber is still investigating how an 18-year-old was able to gain access to its systems.

When Uber was informed about the hack, the employees were strictly prohibited from using the the messaging app. Along with Slack, some other internet systems were also inaccessible to the users.

Revealing how he got access to Uber's internal systems, the hacker told the New York Times that he had sent a message to an Uber employee claiming to be a corporate information technology officer. The hacker coaxed the employee to share his password and the employee fell into the trap. The hacker revealed that he is only 18 years old and had been working on his cyber security skills for years.