Uber is still experiencing repercussions following the way they handled their data breach in 2016. The breach included over 57 million users. The company originally attempted to cover up the breach by paying $100,000 for the hackers to delete the data set. However, they ended up revealing details on the breach last year. Since then, countries across Europe have taken their turns reprimanding the company.
This time the fine comes from France, who had 1. 4 million of their own citizens affected. The fine is being spearheaded by the CNIL, France’s Data Protection Unit.
“According to the CNIL’s report, hackers managed to connect to Uber’s GitHub repositories using some employee’s login and password. They then managed to connect to Uber’s Amazon Web Services account and download user data.”
Tech Crunch
The CNIL also noted that there were numerous things Uber could have done to avoid the breach. This includes making TFA (Two Factor Authentication) mandatory and not storing AWS login info in plain texts on GitHub systems. Additionally, Uber could have used an IP whitelist when connecting to AWS.
Uber is fortunate that GDPR wasn’t yet in effect when their breach occurred. Now companies have a mere 72 hours to notify authorities with details of a breach. As seen recently with Facebook, failure to do so could result in a fine of up to 4% of the companies
So far Uber has gathered a total of 1.6 million in fines.
What you can do
When you entrust your information with any large corporations it is at risk of becoming collateral during a breach.
So what can you do outside of stopping your involvement with these services? For starters, you can try being diligent about monitoring your information. One of the best ways to do this is by going straight to the source of where a lot of leaked information ends up, the Dark Web.
With ScoresMatter, you can scan the Dark Web and see if criminals are trading or selling your personal details. You can also learn what you can do if we do find your information on the Dark Web.
Protect the digital you at ScoresMatter today.