Uber Used $100K Bug Bounty to Pay, Silence Florida Hacker: Report

Uber reportedly paid a 20-year-old Florida man behind its massive data breach $100,000 from its bug bounty program to keep mum about the cyberattack and to delete the stolen data.

A Reuters report quotes unnamed sources familiar with the breach event as saying that Uber paid the man in order to confirm his identity, and had him sign a nondisclosure agreement to prevent him from doing any further damage. Uber also performed a forensic investigation on the man's computer to ensure he had deleted the stolen information.

The man reportedly paid another individual to steal Uber credentials from GitHub, which ultimately led to the Uber systems breach. According to a source quoted in the Reuters report, the man was "living with his mom in a small home trying to help pay the bills."

Uber's use of a bug bounty for the payment was an unusual move: bug bounty payments normally range from $5,000 to $10,000.

See Reuters' full article here.