57 Million Users Affected by Data Breach at Uber

In a year that couldn’t get much worse for Uber, the company’s already tarnished reputation took another hit on Tuesday, when CEO Dara Khosrowshahi published a statement informing the public of a major data breach at his company. The incident saw two company outsiders gain access to personal information of 57 million Uber users, including the names and driver’s license numbers of around 600,000 drivers in the United States.

To make things worse however, Khosrowshahi, who replaced Uber’s co-founder Travis Kalanick as CEO in August, had to admit that his company had already learned about the breach in late 2016 and had failed to inform the affected users and the public until now. According to the statement, two individuals who were in charge of the response to the incident at the time had to leave the company effective immediately following a thorough investigation.

As our chart illustrates, Uber is by no means the only company that has fallen victim to data theft in the past few years. It is the apparent lack of transparency that once again puts the company and its former leadership team in a bad light.