Investigators looking into a data breach last year and theft of records for drivers from Uber Technologies have uncovered indications that implicate an executive at Lyft a rival app that also specializes in ride hailing.
The investigators at Uber believed last year’s intruder used a security key from the company, accessible on a public website to access up to 50,000 records of drivers during May of 2014, said Uber in court records from a lawsuit related to this breach.
Uber discovered the data breach in September of 2014 and disclosed it five months later.
We investigated the matter a long time ago and there were no facts or evidence found that any employee at Lyft including Chris was involved in the May 2014 Uber data breach.
Lyft and Uber are fierce rivals that have been known to poach drivers from one another, co-opt innovations and compete to raise capital in the billions of dollars.
Uber operates in over 330 cities around the world and Lyft in 65 U.S. cities. Lyft joined forces with Didi Kuaidi the startup riding sharing app in China to allow users of both apps to hail rides with the other’s drivers, in a move that is regard as a working alliance against Uber.
Suspicions by Uber that an executive from Lyft had been involved with the breach were reported on Thursday by an international news agency.
Following the data breach, Uber filed a lawsuit known as John Doe, which is a form of legal action often used when the identity of the defendant is not known.
Lawyers at Uber persuaded a judge in the case to order that Comcast release its records of an Internet service subscriber of Comcast who Uber has claimed appears to be hooked with the breach.
Attorney for that subscriber, who is not named, are appealing the order by the judge, saying it would cause undo embarrassment and harm to the reputations of their client.
