Uber conducting probe after vendor hit with cyberattack

Uber Technologies said it’s investigating the hack of a third-party vendor that reportedly resulted in the leak of data from the ride-hailing company, including employee email addresses.

The vendor, Teqtivity, which helps manage and track information technology equipment such as phones and computers, on Monday confirmed the cyberattack.

More than 77,000 Uber employees’ email addresses and other company data, including source code, have been leaked as part of the recent hack, according to a report from Bleeping Computer, which covers information security and technology news.

“We believe these files are related to an incident at a third-party vendor and are unrelated to our security incident in September,” said Carissa Simons, the Uber spokesperson.

“Based on our initial review of the information available, the code is not owned by Uber; however, we are continuing to look into this matter.”

Teqtivity said in a statement it doesn’t collect or store sensitive information such as bank account details or government identification numbers.

The exposed data includes device information such as serial number, make and model as well as user information such as full name, work email address and location.

Teqtivity said customer data was compromised due to unauthorised access to its systems by a malicious third party. The hacker was was able to gain access to the Teqtivity AWS backup server that houses the company’s code and data files related to its customers, according to the company.

Teqtivity has notified law enforcement officials and hired a forensics firm to investigate all logs and server configuration.

The leak is the latest breach to affect Uber. Uber said the attackers (or attacker) responsible for a September breach were affiliated with the notorious extortion group called Lapsus$ and had likely infected a contractor’s personal device with malware and then bought that person’s password on the dark web.

In that instance, the intruders were able to get into several employee accounts and had security permissions for Uber’s G-Suite and Slack, among other internal tools.

In October, former Uber security chief Joe Sullivan was found guilty of hiding a massive 2016 data breach from federal regulators.

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