Warning: Your Uber Account Could Be Hacked
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DALLAS (CBS11) - When a text message warned Rachel Story the phone number on her Uber account had changed, she knew something was wrong.
"I immediately thought, okay, somebody had hacked my Uber," she said.
She tried accessing her Uber app.
"It wouldn't let me log in. It kept saying my password was incorrect," she said.
She had to reset the password to get in and spotted the new phone number associated with the account.
"It was a phone number from Canada. Definitely not me!" she said.
But Story was lucky. She caught the hack before anyone took her bank account for a ride, unlike people sharing their stories on social media.
Brandon Tabbert, of St Paul, Minnesota, says he was charged for a "super dope trip around Moscow that I didn't actually take."
L Cobb in Washington, DC wrote he paid for a three and half hour ride through South Africa despite the fact, "I live and am currently in (the) US"
In a statement Uber said, "Our security teams are laser focused on protecting the integrity of our community's Uber accounts. We use technical measures to detect any issues and are always enhancing the measures we deploy to protect our users' accounts."
"You have to constantly adapt to the threat," said Ed Cabrera of Trend Micro, an Irving-based security firm.
A study by Trend Micro found a hacked Uber account can be even more valuable on the black market than a stolen credit card number.
Security experts say it's because banks have better fraud detection.
"These cyber criminals are only going to target the data that they find valuable to sell on the underground, " said Cabrera.
Story has been unable so far to delete her Uber account, so she cancelled the credit card it is linked to.
She also edited her personal information to include a profane message for any thief trying to take a peak.
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