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Sullivan, who was fired from Uber in 2017, was found guilty on
two counts, namely obstruction of justice and deliberate
concealment of felony.
"Sullivan affirmatively worked to hide the data breach from the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and took steps to prevent the
hackers from being caught," said Stephanie Hinds, U.S. Attorney
for the Northern District of California.
The case pertains to a breach at Uber's systems that affected
data of 57 million passengers and drivers. The company did not
disclose the incident for a year.
In July, Uber accepted responsibility for covering up the breach
and agreed to cooperate with the prosecution of Sullivan over
his alleged role in concealing the hacking, as part of a
settlement with U.S. prosecutors to avoid criminal charges.
Sullivan's lawyer David Angeli and the FTC did not immediately
respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
Sullivan was originally indicted in September 2020. Prosecutors
had said at the time he arranged to pay the hackers $100,000 in
bitcoin and had them sign nondisclosure agreements that falsely
stated they had not stolen data.
Sullivan was also accused of withholding information from Uber
officials who could have disclosed the breach to the FTC, which
had been evaluating the San Francisco-based company's data
security following a 2014 breach.
In September 2018, Uber paid $148 million to settle claims by
all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., that it was too slow to
disclose the hacking.
(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna
Chandra Eluri)
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