Ride-sharing service Uber suffered a huge data breach eight months ago, and the company now hopes to uncover details about an Internet address that it believes could help identify the hacker, Reuters reported Thursday.
That Internet address can be linked to the chief of technology at its main U.S. Rival Lyft, Reuters said, citing two anonymous sources.
In February, Uber said that someone downloaded 50,000 names and numbers for its drivers. Uber filed a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court at the time.
As Reuters notes:
Uber’s court papers claim that an unidentified person using a Comcast IP address had access to a security key used in the breach. The two sources said the address was assigned to Lyft’s technology chief, Chris Lambert.
Although court papers failed to link the Comcast IP address with the hacker, Judge Laurel Beeler said the information could help with the case. Uber’s request to get a subpoena to look further into the Comcast user was granted in July.
In response to a request for comment on the matter, a spokesperson for Lyft told Coins2Day: “Uber allowed login credentials for their driver database to be publicly accessible on GitHub for months before and after a data breach in May 2014. We investigated this matter long ago and there are no facts or evidence that any Lyft employee, including Chris, downloaded the Uber driver information or database, or had anything to do with Uber’s May 2014 data breach.”
Uber declined to comment when asked for comment. Coins2Day has reached out to Comcast (CMCSA) for comment as well.
The news comes around the time that Uber and Lyft are facing new competition in Boston.