Technology1 min read

Uber confirms hackers stole thousands of drivers’ license information in data breach

By · Via TechCrunch · Published by Everything Blog

In short

The breach occurred after cybercriminals compromised Fireworks AI, an external vendor enabling developers to access open AI models, to harvest credentials used against Uber's systems. Regulatory filings reveal that thousands of drivers across Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Rhode Island suffered personal and driver's license exposures, with figures still pending for Illinois and California. Productivity platform Notion confirmed its data was also exposed during the same intrusion. The vendor believes the threat actors were financially motivated and primarily intended to illicitly sell tokens providing access to large language models.

Key points

  • The breach exposes ongoing security challenges linked to external artificial intelligence…: The breach exposes ongoing security challenges linked to external artificial intelligence vendors holding sensitive enterprise access credentials.
  • Total victim figures are expected to climb as disclosures from populous states like Calif…: Total victim figures are expected to climb as disclosures from populous states like California and Illinois are finalized.
  • This incident marks the second documented corporate data compromise experienced by Uber d…: This incident marks the second documented corporate data compromise experienced by Uber during the current calendar year.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

Uber is notifying thousands of drivers that their personal and driver’s license information was stolen during an October data breach at one of the company’s tech providers.

In notices filed this week with several U.S. attorneys general, including California, the ride-hail giant said it was notified on October 9 by the provider that hackers broke in and stole internal credentials, which were used to access Uber’s data.

The company said it subsequently began notifying affected drivers that their personal information was stored with the provider.

TechCrunch has learned that the provider is Fireworks AI, which lets developers access and use open AI models. Fireworks reported a data breach last month in which hackers stole its customers’ information, including billing data and some private AI datasets.

Online productivity startup Notion confirmed its data was also stolen in the Fireworks hack.

“The notices to drivers are in relation to a security incident impacting one of our third-party vendors, Fireworks.ai, which had access to some Uber data,” an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch, deferring our questions to Fireworks.

Uber did not say how many…

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