Uber data breach: drivers' license data stolen via Fireworks AI
Uber is warning thousands of drivers that their license details were stolen, and the leak came from an AI vendor most of them have never heard of.
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giftdetect· the right gift in minutesIf you drive for Uber, your driver's license details may have been stolen in a hack that never touched Uber's own systems. The Uber data breach came through Fireworks AI, a company that most drivers have probably never heard of.
In notices filed this week with several U.S. attorneys general, including California's, Uber said the provider told it on October 9 that hackers had broken in and stolen internal credentials. Those credentials were then used to reach Uber's data. Uber has since started notifying affected drivers.
The notices name no figure overall, but state filings give a partial picture. They show driver's licenses stolen from 2,567 people in Massachusetts, 3,430 in South Carolina and 1,873 in Rhode Island. Illinois was told some residents were affected, with the number still pending. Uber also notified drivers in California without saying how many. The total is expected to grow as more notifications arrive.
What is Fireworks AI?
Fireworks AI lets developers access and run open AI models. Uber confirmed to TechCrunch that the incident hit "one of our third-party vendors, Fireworks.ai, which had access to some Uber data," and sent further questions to Fireworks.
Fireworks reported its own breach last month. Hackers took customer information, including billing data and some private AI datasets. Notion has confirmed its data was stolen in the same hack. A Fireworks spokesperson confirmed unauthorized access to some systems but did not answer detailed questions.
Who was behind the Fireworks hack?
Fireworks blames a financially motivated cybercriminal group. According to the company, the goal was to sell stolen tokens that give access to large language models, the AI systems behind chatbots. No known group has claimed responsibility for the data theft.
This is Uber's second known breach this year. Earlier, it reported an incident at Uber Freight, its truck shipping unit, where an extortion gang claimed to have stolen data.
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