The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not represent the views of Her Campus FSU.
Almost every college kid you ask, whether here at Florida State or across the country at UCLA, will definitely admit that Uber is a big part of their lives. Whether it saves you from freezing your butt off outside of Recess on a late Saturday night, or it’s your trusty transportation to get much-needed groceries, Uber is a college kid’s savior. It is quick, easy and a way for us to get from one place to another in no time.
I know the title of the article must have triggered your heart to race, so don’t worry, I’ll explain. Uber has just revealed that personal information of over 50 million riders and drivers were leaked to hackers in 2016, something they should’ve disclosed to the public and authorities last year when it happened. Not following legal procedures, Uber decided to pay off these hackers so they would delete all stolen information. They paid $100,000 in hope of their customers never finding out, but we all know from bad action movies that paying someone off never works out. This made me question whether my information could be in danger since so many people were affected, but it turns out that we can’t be sure that our information is safe.
Reporters at CNN say that because Uber paid off these hackers, now they have a reason to do it again because they know that they will probably receive a lot of money, given that there were only two of them. The hackers told Uber that they safely deleted all of the stolen information but would you trust a person like this? They could have made a copy of the info and are saving it for later.
The CEO of the company has been replaced and so have many other employees who contributed to the discreet cover up. This will be another difficulty that this company is facing while Uber is trying to come back from other incidents that may hurt them. The company is looking at claims of sexual harassment, a $9 million fine for issues in their background checking, and now this, which is a lot, especially for a brand new CEO.
Courtesy: LA Times
So what does this mean for us? Sadly, I can’t tell you whether or not a hacker has your information but I can advise you to not worry about it. It may sound dangerous to not think about your personal information possibly being held by a hacker you don’t know, but the odds of anything happening are slim to none. But will this deter you from using Uber, the most beloved app to be created? I think I may replace it with Lyft! I have heard good reviews about this company so it may be the one to go with. If Lyft faces a scandal of this magnitude, then I don’t know what we’ll do. Maybe we’ll have to rely on taxis? Wow, what a thought.