Uber stock down amid cybersecurity incident

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss stock performance for Uber after the transport company confirmed a cybersecurity breach.

Video Transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

JULIE HYMAN: Well, here's another negative. Let's talk about some individual movers. Shares of Uber--

BRIAN SOZZI: Love it.

JULIE HYMAN: --are moving lower after the ride-hailing giant confirmed it is investigating a cybersecurity breach. Now, according to reports, a hacker was using an employee's workplace Slack account to send company-wide messages claiming that he or she had compromised the network. Uber said in a tweet, "We are currently responding to a cybersecurity incident. We are in touch with law enforcement and will post additional updates as they become available."

So you know, we talk about the macro environment and then we talk about, you know, these individual situations that are affecting these companies. So you know, according to "The New York Times," this was an 18-year-old--

BRAD SMITH: Yeah.

JULIE HYMAN: --who managed to get into their internal systems.

BRAD SMITH: I mean, Uber hasn't necessarily been known from a data protection front, been known as the Winterfell of data privacy.

JULIE HYMAN: [LAUGHS]

BRAD SMITH: I mean, they had a hack back in 2016, impacted 57 million driver and rider accounts. I mean $100,000 they were demanded in order to get that data expunged, basically. And so now, another instance.

And this is where we talk about the important for-- the importance for so many of the companies to amp up their cybersecurity spending. If you can get hacked by a teenager right now-- and especially in an era where Uber has a partner in HackerOne. I was able to interview their CEO many years back in New Orleans at the Collision Conference.

And it seems like a grand idea when you have a company that you're partnering with that's job is to poke holes in every vulnerability that you may have on your technological platform. And then this still happens by an 18-year-old.

JULIE HYMAN: I mean, even Winterfell got breached, Brad.

BRAD SMITH: They did.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, I was just thinking that.

BRAD SMITH: But they were one of the more secure places.

JULIE HYMAN: Yes, yes.

BRIAN SOZZI: When you're looking at that Uber coms team doing that hard work, putting out that statement on Twitter there for the universe. But look, this is a tough end to the week here for Uber. At the Goldman Conference, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, his presentation was well-received.

I was talking to a lot of folks that left that presentation after, they liked what he had to hear. They like what he was clamping down on expenses, saying some positive things on demand. Pointing to continued strong demand overall in the economy for services. But so much for all that.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah.