The former chief of Uber ’s security was charged this week in connection with an alleged cover - up of amassive 2016 hackthat expose the personal information of some 57 million Uber users — a breach he tried his backbreaking to brush under the rug .
According to acriminal complaintfiled this week in the Northern California ’s District Court , Joseph Sullivan told his security faculty to keep detail about the plug “ tightly controlled , ” which allegedly include lie about the telescope of the severance to Uber ’s incoming CEO Dara Khosrowshahi , whojoined the companyin 2017 . TheNew York Timesearlier reported the charges .
Not only did Sullivan instruct his certificate stave to withhold information about the nag and inform others “ only on a need - to - know ground , ” the charge State Department , but the fellowship also treat the hack as the form of white chapeau hacking associated with its bug bounty program , opt topay the hackers $ 100,000 — a sum that far outflank anything Uber had ever paid for the discovery of technological vulnerabilities prior . Moreover , Sullivan go forth a non - disclosure understanding to the involved hackers in substitution for the sum — which was , again , strange for Uber — and advisedly concealed in that NDA the fact that any data had been swiped .
Photo: JOSH EDELSON/AFP (Getty Images)
More elusive was that Sullivan at no clock time unwrap information to the Federal Trade Commission during parallelism with the government agency about issues unrelated to the 2016 rift , according to the complaint . He also allegedly “ did not inform the Uber attorneys working on the FTC investigation — either in - sign or extraneous counselor — that the severance had occur . ”
Mere months after Khosrowshahi conjoin the ship’s company , the breach was disclosed and Sullivan and another Uber employee in the company ’s legal department were fired . The two individuals behind the Uber hack , Brandon Glover and Vasile Mereacre , plead guiltylate last year .
“ We continue to cooperate fully with the Department of Justice ’s probe , ” an Uber interpreter told Gizmodo by electronic mail on Friday . “ Our conclusion in 2017 to let out the incident was not only the right matter to do , it embodies the principles by which we are running our commercial enterprise today : transparency , wholeness , and answerability . ”
“ Concealing entropy about a felony from jurisprudence enforcement is a crime , ” Deputy Special Agent in Charge Craig D. Fair said in astatement . “ While this lawsuit is an extreme example of a prolonged effort to demoralise law enforcement , we hope companies digest up and take notice . Do not help criminal hackers cover their tracks . Do not make the problem worse for your customers , and do not cover up criminal attempts to slip people ’s personal data . ”
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