The hacker who obtained access to data from 57 million Uber accounts reportedly was “living with his mom in a small home trying to help pay the bills,” according to sources who spoke to Reuters. The hack occurred in 2016 but was only unveiled this year after Uber paid the hacker $100,000 to cover up the data theft. The company reportedly paid the hacker the money under the guise of a “bug bounty” program run by HackerOne. Reuters is reporting that sources say Uber paid the hacker the bounty through HackerOne in order to confirm his identity and get him to sign a nondisclosure agreement to deter further wrongdoing. Another source told Reuters that Uber’s security team did not want to pursue prosecution of the 20-year-old since he destroyed the data when asked and appeared to pose no further threat.
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