Uber breach exposes license data of thousands of drivers
What's the story
Uber has confirmed that a recent data breach at one of its tech providers, Fireworks AI, has compromised the personal and driver's license information of thousands of drivers. The company was notified about the incident on October 9. Hackers broke into Fireworks AI's system and stole internal credentials, which were then used to access Uber's data.
Provider involvement
Fireworks AI was involved in the data breach
Fireworks AI, a platform that allows developers to access and use open AI models, was the tech provider involved in this incident.
The company had reported a data breach last month, where hackers stole customer information including billing details and some private AI datasets.
Notably, online productivity start-up Notion also confirmed that its data was stolen in the same Fireworks hack.
Notification process
Uber notifies affected drivers about the data breach
In light of the incident, Uber has started notifying affected drivers that their personal information was stored with Fireworks AI.
However, the company has not revealed how many customers were affected by this breach or how many drivers have been notified about it.
A spokesperson for Fireworks AI did not respond to queries regarding the incident.
Data details
Stolen data from Uber's breach
The stolen data from the Uber-related breach includes driver's licenses of 2,567 people in Massachusetts, 3,430 people across South Carolina, and 1,873 people in Rhode Island.
A filing with Illinois showed that some state residents had their driver's license information stolen but the number of affected individuals is still pending.
Uber also notified California-based drivers but did not disclose how many had their information compromised.
Cyber attack
This is Uber's 2nd known data breach this year
Fireworks AI has blamed its breach on a financially motivated cybercriminal group that aims to sell stolen tokens for accessing large language models (LLMs).
However, no known cybercriminal group has claimed responsibility for the data theft.
This is Uber's second known data breach this year, having previously reported a security incident at its Uber Freight truck shipping unit.