Uber Hacked !

Uber said that it reached out to law enforcement after a hacker apparently breached its network. A security engineer said the intruder provided evidence of obtaining access to crucial systems at the ride-hailing service.

There was no indication that Uber’s fleet of vehicles or its operation was in any way affected. Security experts from Yuga Labs communicated with the hacker, who has the access to the Amazon and Google-hosted cloud environments where Uber stores its source code and customer data.

There was no indication that the hacker had done any damage or was interested in anything more than publicity.

The hacker had alerted using an internal Uber account to comment on vulnerabilities they had previously identified on the company’s network through its bug-bounty program, which pays ethical hackers to ferret out network weaknesses.

The hacker provided a Telegram account address, sharing screenshots of various pages from Uber’s cloud providers to prove they broke in.

The New York Times reported that the person who claimed responsibility for the hack said they gained access through social engineering: They sent a text message to an Uber worker claiming to be a company tech employee and persuaded the worker to hand over a password that gave them access to the network.

One screenshot posted on Twitter and confirmed by researchers shows a chat with the hacker in which they say they obtained the credentials of an administrative user through social engineering.

Uber said via email that it was “currently responding to a cybersecurity incident. We are in touch with law enforcement.” It said it would provide updates on its Uber Twitter feed.