Uber Investigates Data Breach

Uber discovered its computer network had been breached which prompted the company to shut down its internal communications service and engineering systems in order to investigate the extent of the hack.

On Thursday, a hacker sent Uber employees a message in the internal Slack messenger, claiming to have accessed sensitive information. The perpetrator co-opted a staff member’s account and claimed to have gained access also to internal databases.

The hacker appeared to be an 18-year-old who managed to infiltrate the internal systems, providing snapshots of emails and code repositories to prove his exploits, the New York Times reported.

Sam Curry, a researcher with Yuga Labs, who said he had been in contact with the attacker, announced that the perpetrator might have gained access to part of Uber’s Amazon and Google-hosted cloud infrastructure.

An Uber representative confirmed a breach had occurred but declined to elaborate.