Uber’s Former Chief Security Officer Found Guilty of Obstruction For Coverup of Data Breaches
On October 5, 2022, after a monthlong jury trial, former Uber Chief Information Security Officer Joseph Sullivan was found guilty of obstructing proceedings of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and misprision of a felony related to failure to disclose two data breaches in 2014 and 2016. Sullivan remains on bond pending his sentencing, where he faces a maximum sentence of five years for the obstruction charge and three years for the misprision charge.
Sullivan was hired by Uber in 2015 and handled the company’s response to the FTC regarding the 2014 breach. Sullivan supervised Uber’s responses to the FTC, testified under oath to the committee regarding the company’s data protections, and supported a preliminary settlement entered into by Uber and the FTC in the summer of 2016.
However, shortly after Sullivan’s testimony in 2016, Uber fell victim to another cyber-attack. Read the full Privacy blog post here.