Ride-sharing service Uber is acknowledging it was hit by hackers in late 2014 and an Uber database, housing driver partner names and license numbers, was infiltrated.
The company, however, claims there is no evidence the data has been misused.
"Immediately upon discovery we changed the access protocols for the database, removing the possibility of unauthorized access. We are notifying impacted drivers, but we have not received any reports of actual misuse of information as a result of this incident," wrote Katherine Tassi, Uber's managing counsel of data privacy, in a blog post.
Uber is taking legal action as well. Filing a lawsuit, it says, is necessary to gather data for identifying the unauthorized party that initiated the incident.
"Uber takes seriously our responsibility to safeguard personal information, and we are sorry for any inconvenience this incident may cause," wrote Tassi.
The data breach, which actually took place on May 13, 2014, was discovered on Sept. 17, 2014 and involved about 50,000 drivers across many states. The number, says Uber, represents a small percentage of past and current driver partners. The database hacked contained names and license numbers.
The ride-sharing company is offering free identity protection services to those drivers and urging drivers to monitor credit reports.
The news comes just weeks after Uber found out that its lost and found database had been made public, according to Motherboard, which exposed names of customers and drivers as well as travel data, including customer phone numbers and route information.
The company recently completed a review of its privacy policies with newly hired experts to conduct the assessment.
As Tech Times reported last week, the popular car-hailing service, currently valued at $41 billion dollars, is launching a carpooling service called UberPool in New York and San Francisco.
Uber and competitor Lyft have consistently been in the headlines given some outcry over market practices, but both are gaining user bases and taking deeper root in the U.S. and abroad.
Tech Times also recently published a guide on which service meets specific user needs.
