Uber says responding to 'cybersecurity incident' after report of network breach

In this Aug. 16, 2019 file photo, the logo for Uber appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Uber Technologies Inc said on Thursday it is responding to a cybersecurity incident, after a media report that its network was breached with the ride-hailing company taking several internal communications and engineering systems offline.

A hacker compromised an employee's workplace messaging Slack app and then used it to send a message to Uber employees announcing that it had suffered a data breach, according to a New York Times report on Thursday, citing an Uber spokesperson.

It appeared that the hacker was later able to gain access to other internal systems, posting an explicit photo on an internal information page for employees, the report added.

"We are in touch with law enforcement and will post additional updates here as they become available," Uber said in a tweet without providing further details.

The Slack system was taken offline on Thursday afternoon by Uber after employees received the message from the hacker, according to the Times report, citing two employees, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

"I announce I am a hacker and Uber has suffered a data breach," the message read, and went on to list several internal databases that were claimed to be compromised, the report added.

The staff at the company was instructed to not use Slack, which is owned by Salesforce Inc, according to the report. Other internal systems, too, were inaccessible.

(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V and Rashmi Aich)