The former chief security officer of Uber Technologies Inc., Joe Sullivan, is set to be sentenced for federal crimes related to his role at the company. Sullivan has been accused of attempting to conceal a massive data breach that occurred in 2016 by paying off the hackers responsible for the cyberattack.
In 2020, Sullivan was charged with obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony for failing to disclose the data breach to the relevant authorities, instead opting to pay the hackers a $100,000 ransom in exchange for their silence. The incident involved the theft of personal information belonging to 57 million Uber users and drivers.
Sullivan’s legal team has argued that their client was following the directives of his superiors and acting in the best interests of the company at the time. However, prosecutors claim that Sullivan’s actions not only concealed the breach but also hindered the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) investigation into the matter.
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