Khaleej Times reports:
If you were a regular customer of ride-sharing service Careem, this piece of news might leave you worried.
The Dubai-based company today acknowledged that a cyber attack on January 14, 2018 resulted in the theft of personal data of up to 14 million people in Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey.
Information like the customer’s name, email address, phone number and trip data were stolen in the cyber attack.
Read more on Khaleej Times.
The statement on Careem’s blog reads, in part:
Careem has identified a cyber incident involving unauthorised access to the system we use to store data. While we have seen no evidence of fraud or misuse related to this incident, it is our responsibility to be open and honest with you, and to reaffirm our commitment to protecting your privacy and data.
We also want to share with you the actions we’re taking to address the issue and to prevent it from happening in the future.
WHAT HAPPENED
On January 14th of this year, we became aware that online criminals gained access to our computer systems which hold customer and captain account data. Customers and captains who have signed up with us since that date are not affected.
WHAT WE ARE DOING
As soon as we detected the breach, we launched a thorough investigation and engaged leading cybersecurity experts to assist us in strengthening our security systems. We are also working with law enforcement agencies.
Throughout the incident, our priority has been to protect the data and privacy of our customers and captains. Since discovering the issue, we have worked to understand what happened, who was affected, and what we needed to do to strengthen our network defences.
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