Unconfirmed reports claim an 18-year-old kid is behind the massive Uber hack.
Uber is investigating a cybersecurity incident where a hacker claimed to have breached its internal networks and taken down multiple engineering and communications systems. As discussed on social media, the incident affected Uber’s Internal Slack messaging, which was shut down after a ‘cybersecurity incident’
We are currently responding to a cybersecurity incident. We are in touch with law enforcement and will post additional updates here as they become available.
Uber
What happened?
Reportedly, on Thursday 15th, Uber employees received a slack message from someone claiming to be a hacker. The attacker urged that the company increase its drivers’ pay, he also went on to say.
“I announce I am a hacker and Uber has suffered a data breach” the message read.
For your information, Uber uses slack for its internal communications system.
After accessing one of the company’s staff member’s Slack accounts, the hacker could compromise Uber’s internal databases, after which they posted an explicit photo on the company’s internal information page for its employees after getting control of its internal systems.
The breach was discovered shortly after, and resultantly, Uber’s IT security team took most of its internal engineering and communications systems offline. An investigation into the incident was also promptly launched.
Further Details
The unknown hacker claims to have stolen Uber’s exclusive data and shared images of cloud storage, email and code repositories with cybersecurity experts. As per Yuga Labs security engineer Sam Curry, the hacker seems to have gained full access to Uber’s internal systems and carried out a “total compromise.”
Meanwhile, Uber has instructed its employees to avoid using Slack, whereas its other internal systems are also inaccessible. A message was also shared by Curry apparently from an Uber employee which unofficially confirms the data breach at Uber.
According to security researcher Marcus Hutchins on Twitter, “the Uber hack looks really bad.” However, on TikTok, Marcus posted an updated revealing that the hacker is actually an 18-year-old kid with no connection to any group. However, at the time of writing, it was unclear who the hacker actually is, how old are they and what are their actual motives.
According to malware analysis platform vx-underground on Twitter, additional screenshots leaked by the threat actor show they allegedly have access to Uber’s AWS instance, vSphere, Google workplace, HackerOne administration panel, and several other platforms used by the San Francisco, California-based ride-hailing giant.
Social Engineering at Work
According to The New York Times, the hacker used social engineering tactics to infiltrate Uber’s communications system. He sent a text message to a worker at Uber claiming to be a corporate information technology personnel and persuaded the employee to hand over their Slack password.
Afterwards, accessing Uber’s systems was pretty easy. The hacker claims that he is eighteen years old and was able to breach the ride-hailing company’s systems because of weak security.
Uber chief information security officer Latha Maripuri confirmed that there’s no specific estimate of when its services will be fully restored.
Suggest an edit to this article
Go to Cybersecurity Knowledge Base
Got to the Latest Cybersecurity News
Stay informed of the latest Cybersecurity trends, threats and developments. Sign up for our Weekly Cybersecurity Newsletter Today.
Remember, CyberSecurity Starts With You!
- Globally, 30,000 websites are hacked daily.
- 64% of companies worldwide have experienced at least one form of a cyber attack.
- There were 20M breached records in March 2021.
- In 2020, ransomware cases grew by 150%.
- Email is responsible for around 94% of all malware.
- Every 39 seconds, there is a new attack somewhere on the web.
- An average of around 24,000 malicious mobile apps are blocked daily on the internet.
