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An 18-year-old hacker is taking credit for accessing Uber's internal computer systems. The teenager sent proof of his exploits, including screenshots of code repositories, to cybersecurity researchers and the New York Times.
"They pretty much have full access to Uber," Sam Curry, a security engineer at Yuga Labs who spoke with the hacker on Telegram, told the Times. "This is a total compromise, from what it looks like."
The alleged hacker told the Times that he was able to gain access to Uber's systems by tricking an employee into providing their username and password.
Uber said it was investigating a "cybersecurity incident" and is in contact with law enforcement agencies. A spokesperson for the company told Fox Business that the hacker sent an explicit image to an internal page for employees.
"I announce I am a hacker and Uber has suffered a data breach," he wrote in a message on Uber's internal Slack channel.
Uber took several of its internal systems offline as a precaution while it investigates the unauthorized access.
The hacker also spoke to the Washington Post and said he broke into Uber's computer systems for fun and suggested he could release the company's source code "in a few months."