New age transportation giant Uber said on Friday that a data breach may have allowed malicious actors to gain access to the driver’s license numbers of roughly 50,000 of its drivers.
In a statement posted to the company’s website on Friday, Uber said that it had identified a “one-time access of an Uber database” by an unauthorized third party in May 2014.
“A small percentage of current and former Uber driver partner names and driver’s license numbers were contained in the database,” the statement, posted by Katherine Tassi, Uber’s Managing Counsel of Data Privacy, wrote. “Immediately upon discovery we changed the access protocols for the database, removing the possibility of unauthorized access. We are notifying impacted drivers, but we have not received any reports of actual misuse of information as a result of this incident.”
Here is Uber’s account of what has happened, according to its data breach disclosure statement.
• On September 17, 2014, Uber discovered that one of its databases could potentially have been accessed by a third party.
• Upon discovery Uber immediately changed the access protocols for the database and began an in-depth investigation.
• An investigation revealed that a one-time unauthorized access to an Uber database by a third party had occurred on May 13, 2014, exposing approximately 50,000 drivers across multiple states, which the company says is a small percentage of current and former Uber driver partners.
According to Tassi, Uber has not received any reports of actual misuse of any information as a result of this incident, but is notifying impacted drivers.
Uber said it would provide a one year of free credit monitoring service through Experian.
Additionally, Tassi said the company has filed what is referred to as a “John Doe” lawsuit in order to help gather information that may help identity the malicious actor(s).