Uber’s former chief security officer Joseph Sullivan has been charged with obstruction of justice in the US.<\/p>\n
The 52-year-old is accused of trying to cover up a data breach in 2016 that exposed the details of 57 million Uber drivers and passengers.<\/p>\n
The company has previously admitted to paying a group of hackers a $100,000 (\u00a375,000) ransom to delete the data they had stolen.<\/p>\n
Mr Sullivan was fired in 2017 when the data breach was revealed.<\/p>\n
The charges filed by the US Department of Justice said Mr Sullivan had taken “deliberate steps” to stop the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from finding out about the hack.<\/p>\n
He is accused of approving the $100,000 payment to the hackers, which was made in bitcoin.<\/p>\n
The payment was disguised as a “bug bounty” reward, used to pay cyber-security researchers who disclose vulnerabilities so they can be fixed.<\/p>\n
The charges allege that he asked the hackers to sign non-disclosure agreements, falsely stating they had not stolen any Uber data.<\/p>\n
“Silicon Valley is not the Wild West,” said US lawyer David Anderson. “We expect good corporate citizenship. We expect prompt reporting of criminal conduct. We expect co-operation with our investigations. We will not tolerate corporate cover-ups.”<\/p>\n
Source: BBC News<\/p>\n