Privacy Challenges around Data for Uber Technologies Inc.

Privacy Challenges around Data for Uber Technologies Inc.

Introduction

The challenges on data privacy exist since data has more value to several people. Data in content and metadata files area identifiable with the files which are used for storing them. More of these data breaches are expected to occur because several people are transferring sensitive data towards cloud storage. Utilizing cloud storage towards making data accessible from all places might have legal inferences concerning domestic and foreign laws, travel, insurance, and employment. Several firms worry concerning criminals stealing their data.  The paper looks into privacy challenges around data usage regarding Uber. It presents why such difficulties are in existence and various general approaches to solving such them. In solving different problems regarding data privacy, it is imperative to utilize specific data tools or databases. The essay offers various data tools used in solving data challenges. Again, it provides the organization’s data security implementation and the benefits realized from the application. Discussed within the paper are various results of implementing data security in Uber Technologies Inc.  It gives clarity on whether the outcomes of implementing data security meet the goalmouths of fall short of attaining such objectives.

The essay will give a summary of the essential ideas and also make recommendations or how Uber Technologies Inc. might have achieved even greater success. As there are multiple issues to be addressed within data privacy, big data has turned out to be fresh oil within the digital economy. The realization of significant data benefits needs the requirements of multiple issues on privacy and security to be kept in mind. This shows that the entire pipeline requires to be reconsidered and tight security measures placed for curbing data breaches which can be witnessed. Sharing of data from one point to the other is the major issue posing security challenges in various organizations. Thus, the paper is insightful in providing measures of curbing data-stealing, just like witnessed happening in multiple firms.

Background

Uber Technologies Inc. is a multinational technology firm headquartered in San Francisco. It is an American firm. Uber believed that entering China would be an essential marketing opportunity as a result of the tourism market, which had started booming. The level of rising incomes, as well as lenient policies on Visa, made traveling to China accessible and achievable among the middle class. There were increments on the outbound travel expenditures to 53 percent as of the year 2014. Spending on tourism similarly surged by 21.3 percent. From all these increments, Mobile travel applications and online booking trips became increasingly famous. With all these positive tendencies, China believed entering China would turn out to be an essential marketing opportunity.

All things went wrong for Uber in China. China is hugely a complicated marketplace that differs politically, culturally, economically, as of the economic structures witnessed in several western states such as the UK and the US. Occasionally, it is getting tougher for western companies to set foot in China-which is taken as a complex state. Economically, Uber suffered a loss of approximately 1 billion USD dollars annually within China’s market. This occurred following Mr. Travis’s frequent visits to China to make good businesses as well as personal relationships with the political setups with the Chinese. The losses became higher, and Uber could not put up which such tendencies. Uber finds it hard to align with cultural, economic, and political environments in China, which could have assisted the company in moving forward. In a nutshell, Uber failed to handle complicated and risky marketplace in China.

Selling Uber to Didi was a wise decision ever made by the company. The more luxurious services delivered by Didi were more appealing and attractive to Chinese users as compared to the strategies used for Uber in positioning (Liu, Yunhan, and Dohoon 21).

Challenges

Uber Technologies Inc.as a tech-firm that has been facing challenges surrounding its security issue data. Securing business data is something that many firms get to be hard, and it is a mission that is never-ending. There multiple massive impacts concerning data breaches. This forms the primary motive as to why firms are spending considerable resources when it comes to securing their data. In the process of obtaining data, Uber Technologies Inc. faces some of the challenges as explained below:

Uber workers

The primary point of vulnerability when it comes to securing data is the employees of an organization. These individuals have legitimate accessibility towards various credentials, which are vital for the company. As indicated by Subashini & Kavitha (2011), the major causes of data breaches include miscellaneous errs, which is accounting for 9 percent of the violations which have been confirmed. Of these breaches, 30 percent of these incidents insider jobs. The misuse of information by the employees accounted for 11 percent of the total events which occurred. The actions of employees in data breaches account for 19 percent of the full events taking place. The innocent workers might cause more significant damages juts as malicious hackers can do. The major happenings of data breaches caused by employees happen as a result of human errors. Mobile phones of key data employees can get lost, thus leading to significant information leaking into the hands of unknown people who might have bad intentions with such information.

Similarly, letters can be misaddressed as well as cabinet filling might contain sensitive data; thus, an employee ends up sharing such information by the third party. Some of the data breaches occur as a result of the negligence of the carelessness of some of the employees. In most cases, there are warning pop-ups that flash up on the screens, and most workers don’t take immediate action in getting solutions to such predicaments. For instance, according to Johnson & Goetz (2007), 26 million of warnings offered by Chrome are often ignored by about 71 percent of workers. This is because some workers have insufficient acquaintance with technical skills. This made Chrome to simplify the language in which the warning language was to be remitted. Thus, employees in Uber Technologies Inc. are significant causes of security challenges which an organization has been facing.

Human errors might indicate complexity levels. Commonly, normal faults might suggestively influence data protection and privacy. Most of the security analysts purport that human errors form significant challenges that have negative impacts on data securities and privacies. Employees who are ill-informed and unaware might cause leaks to passwords that are weakly developed. At times, such workers might delete data mistakenly thus falling for scams of phishing

Malware

Malware can infect the company’s computers or networks then steals information, internet usage, as well as other valuable data, which can be attained. For instance, malware like ransomware holds organizational data into hostage, thus advancing incessant threats that might be acting to siphon the data. This causes essential damages to business operations. With multiple new signals of risks that are created every day, Uber Technologies Inc.has been always cautioning against such dangers. The challenge of data privacy caused by malware has prompted the growth of the whole industry devoted to generating counters in deluging malicious software. Such threats have flooded various business systems. To have the problem controlled, there has been an upsurge of antivirus industries. However, doing the antivirus alone is not sufficient in keeping the corporate data to be secured from each attack.

Data protection is not an easy feat. In the whole information security lifecycles of Uber Technologies Inc., the leadership of Chief Technology Officer has been experiencing pitfalls as well as hurdles in controlling data security. The tools for data loss can assist in safeguarding users from leaking data that are sensitive from malicious attacks or instead of data threats that have occurred mistakenly (Johnson & Goetz, 2007).

Maintenance and implementation costs for robust measures of security

Robust-multi-layered security is costly for Uber. Implementing and maintaining such security measures internally calls for vast sums of money. The price ranges from licensing fees, hardware costs of a particular needed security, needed labor force in support of maintaining and updating the system. All these costs can be immense to get appropriate solutions to security challenges. Workers who have accessibility to privileged accounts can often pose threats to securities (Paryasto, Alamsyah & Rahardjo, 2014). Cyber-security certainly is a significant concern in which the owners of businesses, as well as executives of technologies, should undertake in ensuring that an organization reaps more when measures are taken to control the problem. Many companies have been successfully hacked to gain access to crucial information on the operation of such firms. The hackers often are aware of the significant vulnerabilities, which organizations are subjected to. It is costly to buy and maintain software meant to prevent hacking within an organization.

Solutions

Safeguarding against deliberate and accidental insider misuse can be something that can be hard. However, for Uber Technologies Inc.to limit such risks the management should put into practice the following:

Restriction of the accessibility to organizational data towards the minimum needed for duties- The Company ensures that no newly recruited employee gets access to each secured database. Access restriction bares minimum reductions on the risks of data breaches. However, this might as well have impacts on work efficiency whenever employees require access to some particular databases to conduct their projects assigned.

Drilling workers in rudimentary protocols of information safety. Workers in Uber Technologies Inc. allow continuous pieces of training on basic accounts on various security protocols to avert accidental sharing of the details of users. This incorporates safety on web browsing, phishing detections, and link download training.

Establishing guidelines and outcomes of data security, which are transparent. As long as workers have acquired training on the basics of information security, they are supposed to be held accountable for the standards which have been set by the company to be followed. At all times, Uber Technologies Inc. management stresses the consequences of infringing the spelled out rules.

Revoking access permits for workers who have been terminated from working with Amazon. Irrespective of how trustworthy a worker can be at times of his working tenure, it is paramount to eradicate the credentials used for accessing the system immediately such a person gets terminated. Having accounts of unused users is an austere risk to data security. This is because even workers who are honest can be tempted in performing actions that are illicit whenever their employer terminates them.

The perfect primary solution to solving malware problems is the general use of the antivirus program. These antivirus programs employ blacklisting in blocking particular threat signals, which reduce massive risks from ravaging the company’s filing systems. However, the antiviruses only have the capability of safeguarding against threat signals, which are known.

In guarding against malware, Uber Technologies Inc.utilizes robust, multi-layered measures of security in support of data storage. These measures can include the following:

Perimeter Firewalls- these assist in blocking exterior traffics from entering the system by ensuring that the malware is installed in the first place. Through utilizing threat recognition, which is IP sensitive, perimeter firewalls that have been established by Uber Technologies Inc.has helped provide protections against any new malware which can threaten the operations of the company (Gantz & Reinsel, 2012).

Intrusion detections as well as event system of event logging. The methods of intrusion detection allow firms to track the origin points of intrusion attempts. As this is likely not to avert malware from penetrating the systems, IDS permits the attack to be trailed back as of its source to prevent future threats concerning the privacy of the system. The IDS assists in detecting IP addresses, thus barring unauthorized loggings.

Concerning the high cost of purchasing and maintaining strong security measures, Uber Technologies Inc. is using a secured cloud provider in running its information technology infrastructure. Through the secured cloud systems, Uber Technologies Inc.is capable of leveraging the benefits of enterprise grades, which is a robust multi-layered security device attained at a cheaper cost. Similarly, the cloud providers handle updates and maintenance of the cloud environments alongside the company’s security measures and tasks at affordable prices. This is enabling the department of the internal department of IT to put more focus on jobs that are supposed to drive businesses to good results. In using the cloud computing providers, the company made steps further in reducing costs, which could have been incurred in data security. Thus, Uber Technologies Inc. attained its dream of cost reduction for its operations

Conclusion

In summary, in nowadays innovations and competitions, there is the rampant use of internet ecosystems all through. This ensures that there are responsive markets to the demands of consumers. The providers of broadband are responding to various acts of competition that are expected in the marketplace. Through the creation and deployment of multiple facilities, Uber Technologies Inc. stands a better chance of moving safeguarding technological innovations by ensuring that its data security is not breached. This has assisted in expanding capacities and speeds in terms of service delivery as well as offering competitive organization prices.

The paper has outlined various challenges faced by Uber Technologies Inc.in the event of securing its data privacy. Maintenance of stable Internet is an important goal that assists in benefiting consumers. These aiding edging providers, in addition to various tech-firms, which later assist in reaching several people. Uber Technologies Inc.may place patents to assist in safeguarding its major innovations to avoid. However, this does not show that other mobile firms can never collaborate with them towards using their technologically designed products. There are several salutations which have been outlined being used by Uber Technologies Inc.in curbing various security breaches. These solutions have been placed in the development of inventive notions. These happen even if such tendencies come from within an organization or from elsewhere. The programs used by Uber Technologies Inc.in this industry assist in reducing various threats to the company’s data. The company employs technical experts together with services of business consultative to bring to market ideas that are going to assist the company moves forward in all its endeavors. The developments of programs have supported various projects as done in the Amazon. The rules on net neutrality for the prior periods have been on data usage by the employees that are followed to the dot—this preventing various insider threats. Many techs- firms are changing their data security techniques towards ensuring that safety is enhanced in an organization. This is likely to have an impact on the proper data management and property infringements in support of these firms. Activation of user devices in technological innovation shall assist clients in buying wireless devices then move ahead to do the activation of data security without moving to the actual stores to have these services done for them.

The company’s survival is focused on competitive advantages the firm enjoys. The competitive strategy is emphasizing the uniqueness of markets. Uber Technologies Inc. places more emphasis on selling quality products to attract as well as retain the existing clients. The managers within the organization put more focus on the competitive advantages via the attempts of ensuring that quality produced by the company is unmatched. The quality of products is based on generic strategies. For instance, in place of subsidiary products, Amazon, and advocates for selling of technological items of higher quality. Thus, these are meant to maintain the existing and attract new customers. Intensive strategies for growth are implemented to maximize the plan of generic benefits. The strategic objectives applied by Uber Technologies Inc. assist the company in succeeding in its areas of business growth.

References

Gantz, J., & Reinsel, D. (2012). The digital universe in 2020: Big data, more prominent digital shadows, and most significant growth in the Far East. IDC iView: IDC Analyze the future, 2007(2012), 1-16.

Johnson, M. E., & Goetz, E. (2007). Embedding information security into the organization. IEEE Security & Privacy, 5(3), 16-24.

Liu, Y., & Kim, D. (2018). Why did Uber China fail in China?–Lessons from Business Model Analysis.

Paryasto, M., Alamsyah, A., & Rahardjo, B. (2014). Big-data security management issues. In 2014 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT) (pp. 59-63). IEEE.

Subashini, S., & Kavitha, V. (2011). A survey on security issues in service delivery models of cloud computing. Journal of network and computer applications, 34(1), 1-11.