Serious breach at Uber spotlights hacker social deception
San Francisco (US), Sep 17: The ride-hailing service Uber said on Friday that all its services were operational following what security professionals are calling a major data breach, claiming there was no evidence the hacker got access to sensitive user data.
But the breach, apparently by a lone hacker, put the spotlight on an increasingly effective break-in routine involving social engineering: The hacker apparently gained access posing as a colleague, tricking an Uber employee into surrendering their credentials.
They were then able to locate passwords on the network that got them the level of privileged access reserved for system administrators.
The potential damage was serious: Screenshots the hacker shared with security researchers indicate they obtained full access to the cloud-based systems where Uber stores sensitive customer and financial data.
It is not known how much data the hacker stole or how long they were inside Uber's network. Two researchers who communicated directly with the person who self-identified as an 18-year-old to one of them said they appeared interested in publicity. There was no indication they destroyed data.
But files shared with the researchers and posted widely on Twitter and other social media indicated the hacker was able to access Uber's most crucial internal systems.
"It was really bad the access he had. It's awful," said Corbin Leo, one of the researchers who chatted with the hacker online.
The cybersecurity community's online reaction Uber also suffered a serious 2016 breach was harsh.
The hack "wasn't sophisticated or complicated and clearly hinged on multiple big systemic security culture and engineering failures", tweeted Lesley Carhart, incident response director of Dragos Inc., which specialises in an industrial-control systems.
Leo said screenshots the hacker shared showed the intruder got access to systems stored on Amazon and Google cloud-based servers where Uber keeps source code, financial data and customer data such as driver's licenses.
"If he had keys to the kingdom he could start stopping services. He could delete stuff. He could download customer data, change people's passwords," said Leo, a researcher and head of business development at the security company Zellic.
Screenshots the hacker shared many of which found their way online showed sensitive financial data and internal databases accessed. Also widely circulating online: The hacker announcing the breach Thursday on Uber's internal Slack collaboration system.
Leo, along with Sam Curry, an engineer with Yuga Labs who also communicated with the hacker, said there was no indication that the hacker had done any damage or was interested in anything more than publicity.
"It's pretty clear he's a young hacker because he wants what 99 per cent of what young hackers want, which is fame," Leo said.
Curry said he spoke to several Uber employees on Thursday who said they were "working to lock down everything internally" to restrict the hacker's access. That included the San Francisco company's Slack network, he said.
In a statement posted online on Friday, Uber said "internal software tools that we took down as a precaution yesterday are coming back online".
It said all its services including Uber Eats and Uber Freight were operational and that it had notified law enforcement. The FBI said via email that it is "aware of the cyber incident involving Uber, and our assistance to the company is ongoing".
Uber said there was no evidence that the intruder accessed "sensitive user data" such as trip history but did not respond to questions from The Associated Press including about whether data was stored encrypted.
Curry and Leo said the hacker did not indicate how much data was copied. Uber did not recommend any specific actions for its users, such as changing passwords.
The hacker alerted the researchers to the intrusion on Thursday by using an internal Uber account on the company's network used to post vulnerabilities identified through its bug-bounty programme, which pays ethical hackers to ferret out network weaknesses.
After commenting on those posts, the hacker provided a Telegram account address. Curry and other researchers then engaged them in a separate conversation, where the intruder provided the screenshots as proof.
The AP attempted to contact the hacker at the Telegram account, but received no response.
Screenshots posted online appeared to confirm what the researchers said the hacker claimed: That they obtained privileged access to Uber's most critical systems through social engineering.
The apparent scenario:
The hacker first obtained the password of an Uber employee, likely through phishing. The hacker then bombarded the employee with push notifications asking they confirm a remote log-in to their account.
When the employee did not respond, the hacker reached out via WhatsApp, posing as a fellow worker from the IT department and expressing urgency. Ultimately, the employee caved and confirmed with a mouse click.
Social engineering is a popular hacking strategy, as humans tend to be the weakest link in any network. Teenagers used it in 2020 to hack Twitter and it has more recently been used in hacks of the tech companies Twilio and Cloudflare, said Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security, which specialises in training workers not to fall victim to social engineering.
"The hard truth is that most orgs in the world could be hacked in the exact way Uber was just hacked," Tobac tweeted. In an interview, she said "even super tech savvy people fall for social engineering methods every day".
"Attackers are getting better at by-passing or hi-jacking MFA (multi-factor authentication)," said Ryan Sherstobitoff, a senior threat analyst at SecurityScorecard.
That's why many security professionals advocate the use of so-called FIDO physical security keys for user authentication. Adoption of such hardware has been spotty among tech companies, however.
The hack also highlighted the need for real-time monitoring in cloud-based systems to better detect intruders, said Tom Kellermann of Contrast Security.
"Much more attention must be paid to protecting clouds from within" because a single master key can typically unlock all their doors.
Some experts questioned how much cybersecurity has improved at Uber since it was hacked in 2016.
Its former chief security officer, Joseph Sullivan, is currently on trial for allegedly arranging to pay hackers USD 100,000 to cover up that high-tech heist, when the personal information of about 57 million customers and drivers was stolen.
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IPL first phase schedule announced amid travel concerns caused by war in West Asia
New Delhi (PTI): Defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru will take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2026 opener in Bengaluru on March 28 as the BCCI announced the first phase of the tournament schedule amid concerns around players' travel arrangements due to the ongoing West Asia conflict.
All matches scheduled at the Chinnaswamy Stadium remain subject to clearance from the Karnataka government appointed expert committee, which is scheduled to meet on March 13 to assess venue preparedness in the wake of the deadly stampede at the stadium last season.
The BCCI announced the schedule of the first 20 games on Wednesday and will unveil the full schedule once the dates of elections in three states -- Tamil Nadu, Assam and West Bengal -- are announced.
Besides the state elections, the escalating conflict in West Asia will also be at the forefront of BCCI officials' minds. The war has wreaked havoc to international travel with operations of major airports like Doha and Dubai being heavily restricted.
As a result of that, some of the squad members of South Africa and West Indies are yet to reach home a week after the completion of their T20 World Cup campaign.
It remains to be seen if IPL bound players of those two nations report to their respective teams in time.
"There was a substantial delay in departure of West Indies and South Africa players. It would be a tough task to get them back to India on time. Plus the airfares have gone up substantially due to the war in West Asia," a team official told PTI.
Additionally, hotels across India are facing cooking gas shortage due to the raging conflict and on Tuesday, the central government invoked Essential Commodities Act to ensure uninterrupted supply of domestic cooking gas.
Chennai Super Kings CEO Kasi Viswanthan told PTI that he is expecting his players from the West Indies and South Africa -- Akeal Hossein and Dewald Brevis, to join the team well before their IPL opener.
"We are expecting no delays from their end," he said.
The second game of the opening weekend will see Mumbai Indians host Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede Stadium and the opening weekend will not feature any double-headers.
A total of 20 matches will be played across 10 venues: Bengaluru, Mumbai, Guwahati, New Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.
"During the season, Royal Challengers Bengaluru will play five home matches in Bengaluru and two in Raipur. Punjab Kings will play four home matches in New Chandigarh and three in Dharamshala, while Rajasthan Royals will play three home matches in Guwahati and four in Jaipur," said the BCCI in a statement.
"During this period (the first 16 days), the tournament will feature four double-headers, with the afternoon matches beginning at 03:30 PM IST and the evening matches commencing at 07:30 PM IST.
"Following the opening encounter on Saturday, Mumbai Indians will take on Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday.
"The matches scheduled in Bengaluru are subject to clearance from the Expert Committee constituted by the Government of Karnataka," the BCCI added.
