The concept of Uber is really awesome, however, the concept of data breaches is not. Last Tuesday, ride-sharing service Uber announced a major cyber-security breach.

For those who may not be familiar with Uber, the company was the brainchild of one Garrett Camp.

Camp founded the company in 2009 under the name UberCab. As of late, Uber operates in over 633 cities worldwide and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

The funny name is really a common name, or even colloquial, for 'topmost' or 'super'. When you add the umlaut above the 'u' in the word it suddenly becomes German, meaning 'above.'

Last year, the global transportation company fell prey to a massive cyber-security breach. What makes this current is the fact that Uber just announced the massive breach last week.

Uber, as many other companies doing business in the age of information, have become a target of hackers who, in this case, hacked more than 57 million riders and drivers using the Uber App.

Uber isn't the only company who have chosen to wait before announcing the hack to the public. Yahoo announced their hack about two years after the incident and Equifax waited about a month.

It was reported that Uber paid the hackers $100,000 to keep the hack quiet from the public until they were ready to announce it.

About 600,000 drivers and their licenses were hacked as well as those using the service.

Here's what to do if you have been a victim of a data breach.

As of now, Uber is saying that they have seen no evidence of fraud or the misuse of information that might be tied to this particular incident. However, that doesn't mean that users won't see the effects of the breach in the future.

Therefore, if you or someone you know has used or regularly uses Uber, it has been suggested that they will need to get or purchase some kind of online safeguard for the rest of their lives.

There is also a free credit monitoring service you may look into called Credit Karma. Again, it is free and you can access their site here.

You can also contact Uber directly on their website here.

 

 

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