Uber paid hackers to delete data of 57 mn users, hid fact from public: CEO

Uber Technologies Inc failed to disclose a massive breach last year that exposed the data of some 57 million users of the ride-sharing service, the company's new chief executive officer said on Tuesday.

Discovery of the company's handling of the incident led to the departure of two employees who led Uber's response to the incident, said Dara Khosrowshahi, who was named CEO in August following the departure of founder Travis Kalanick.

Khosrowshahi said he had only recently learnt of the matter himself.

The company's admission that it failed to disclose the breach comes as Uber seeks to recover from a series of crises that culminated in the Kalanick's ouster in June.

"None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it," Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.

According to the company's account, two individuals downloaded data from a web-based server at another company that provided Uber with cloud-computing services.

The data contained names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of some 57 million Uber users around the world. The hackers also downloaded names and driver's licence numbers of some 600,000 of the company's US drivers, Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.
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'You'll be held accountable, Trump,' pro-IS hackers write on US govt sites

Several government websites in the US state of Ohio were apparently hacked to broadcast an anti-government and pro-Islamic State (IS) message, the media reported.

"You will be held accountable Trump, you and all your people for every drop of blood flowing in Muslim countries," said the message on Sunday, which was left by "Team System Dz", Xinhua news agency reported

The affected websites included Ohio Governor John Kasich's office, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, the Ohio Casino Control Commission, the Ohio Office of Workforce Transformation, the Ohio Office of Health Transformation, the Ohio Inspector General and the Ohio Department of Medicaid.

The affected sites' homepages were replaced with the same black background accompanied by music. By noon (1 pm), all of the affected sites appeared to no longer be online.

"As soon as we were notified of the situation, we immediately began to correct it and will continue to monitor until fully resolved," said a spokesperson for the Governor's office in a statement issued on Sunday afternoon.

"We are investigating how these hackers were able to deface these websites. We also are working with law enforcement to better understand what happened," said the Ohio Department of Administrative Services in another statement.

USA Today reported that "Team System Dz" is actually a group of "anti-Israeli Arab teenagers". It has hacked numerous random websites such as the University of New Brunswick's student union site and a Canadian food truck's sandwich site.
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