Assessing IT's Impact on Uber's Transport Business Operations

This report evaluates the impacts of Information Technology (IT) on the transport industry, focusing on Uber. It analyzes a data breach case involving over 57 million users and drivers, highlighting the need for robust information security. The report discusses IT's importance for Uber's survival, its application in business operations, and the benefits and risks associated with its use. It also explores IT's role in maintenance, monitoring, and improving transport information systems. The analysis concludes that IT implementation is crucial for the transport industry, as demonstrated by the Uber data breach case.

Running Head: IT Write Up
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Information Technology for Business
IT Impact on Transport Business: Uber
(Student details :)
5/28/2019

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Contents
Information Technology for Transport Business.......................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
IT Impact on Uber Business.......................................................................................................2
Introduction to case................................................................................................................3
Need for IT for Uber..............................................................................................................3
IT importance for Uber business survival..............................................................................4
IT application into various business operations of Uber........................................................5
IT utilization by transport business........................................................................................6
Benefits of IT for transport business of Uber.........................................................................6
IT Risks for transport business...............................................................................................6
IT usage for the maintenance or monitoring of the Uber transport business.........................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Information Technology for Transport Business
Introduction
The report is focused on evaluating the major impacts of Information Technology (hereinafter
referred to as IT) including positive as well as negative impacts on recent global businesses.
For doing so, this report is going to focus on the transport industry. Here, in order to assess
the IT impacts on global transport business, a discussion over a recent case of information
security (IS) breach will be utilized. In addition to that, recent data and news will be incurred
in order to analyze the chosen case of IS breach within the transport business.
In this context, a recent case of a massive data breach of Uber Car Rental Company is going
to be analyzed in detail (Blystone, 2018). In this way, with the help of assessing the impacts
of IT on the transport industry while focusing on Uber some major impacts of IT on the
chosen industry’s business will be identified.
IT Impact on Uber Business
Source: (Vacca, 2012)

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Introduction to case
The case of Uber data breach suggests that the customers are essentially notified by the
relevant company management as their personal data exposes during the data breach which
can hamper their usual life. In general, a data breach typically happens whenever personal
data or info held by a company is breached, lost and stolen through unauthorized accesses
(Fortune, 2018).
Uber the transport ride-sharing company faced a massive data breach which considerably
impacted more than 57 million riders, drivers and customers that has been confirmed by the
company itself (Lee, 2017). During late 2016, it has been observed that two hackers
unethically retrieved data and information about Uber users’ and drivers’ that was stowed
over a third-party cloud-based service used under the company operations. Besides, the two
individuals accessed users’ and drivers’ data with the help of downloaded files during a
hacking event holding private info, as follows:
 Riders’ Data: the recent news and data are revealing that personal info including
riders’ name, email IDs along with the mobile numbers of more than 57 million Uber-
users has been breached worldwide (Lee, 2017).
 Drivers’ Data: in addition to above, Uber driver’s license numbers attached with the
names of more than 6, 00,000 drivers of the U. S. nation have also been exposed to
the hackers in this huge data breach (Fortune, 2018).
The worst action taken by the Uber Company was that post the data breach; they hide details
of the data breach from the victims of the breach as well as from their unaffected customers.
In this context, as per the Bloomberg’s report, the two hackers accessed Uber’s log-in
credentials to AWS that is a mass-data storage cloud computing service utilized by the
international companies (Wong , 2017). Later then the data breach, Uber has taken urgent
steps for protecting their rest data as well as closing further unauthorized accesses.
Furthermore, Uber recognized the two hackers as well as compensated $100,000 to the
hackers just for deleting the breached and downloaded data during the Uber breach.
Moreover, after this massive IS breach, the company Uber adopted high IS measures for
effectively confining access on their cloud-based storage data server (Fortune, 2018).
Need for IT for Uber
 The company Uber requires IT for many purposes as follows:

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 A transport business like Uber requires IT being a source of business support and
information security.
 Transport industry and Uber often need IT to form as well as strengthen a link to the
whole world
 Uber and the entire transport industry need IT for increased customer segmentation
 Uber needs IT for increased connectivity within its transport business (Schultz, 2009).
 Uber needs IT in order to decrease costs as well as increasing utility within their business
 Uber needs IT for an emerging consumer base
 Uber needs IT for better consideration for the social effect of the transport business
 Uber needs IT for enhanced and best information security in order to avert any case of
IS breach in future (Picanso, 2010).
IT importance for Uber business survival
IT assessment, evaluation, and implementation are essentially important for the Uber
transportation company because in the long run there will be so many big ride-sharing and
car rental companies functioning into this global business environment. For instance, post
facing this huge IS breach by the Uber in 2016, the reputation of the company got affected
largely (Laurell & Sandstorm, 2016). Thus, if Uber transportation business needs to survive
among the existing as well as future rivalry businesses then IT use for enhanced information
security and to create a sustainable business model has become essential (The AME group,
2018).

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Source: (Wong , 2017)
IT application into various business operations of Uber
Application of IT into various business operations of the Uber is as follows:
 As we know that traffic congestion has so many unsustainable impacts over transport
business, hence information technologies can be applied for providing IT solutions
which can support sustainable traffic within Uber business
 In order to incorporate the system like congestion pricing, IT can be applied to Uber’s
business.
 In the form of a real-time information system within the transport business of Uber,
IT can be applied. Besides, data collection, data processing, and data dissemination
come under the sustainability potential of IT solution for Uber (Wong , 2017).

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IT utilization by the transport business
IT-based transport-related technologies can be utilized any transport business like Uber as
follows:
 In the case of transport management applications, IT is utilized in transport businesses
 In the case of supply chain execution applications, IT is utilized for Uber and other
transport businesses (Taschler, 2015).
 In the case of field force automation applications, IT is utilized by the transport
industry
 In case of the fleet as well as freight management applications, transport industry uses
IT based applications (Laurell & Sandstorm, 2016).
Benefits of IT for the transport business of Uber
 With the use of IT, Uber has launched ride-sharing services such as Uber pool, which
saves fuel, cost and time of the transport industry as well as riders (Elliott, 2015).
 With the use of modern IT Uber promoted sustainable development goals of fossil
fuel conservation and resources availability largely
 IT utilization allows tracking an Uber taxi from anywhere
 IT enables GPS utilization within the transport industry.
 IT implementation shows a traffic map so that transportation can be availed smoothly
and frequently by the riders and customers (Bogle, 2018).
IT Risks for transport business
When transport businesses use IT for effective business operations then many IT risks arise
as follows:
 IT may result in data breaches and they affect both the transport companies as well as
consumers.
 Later then IS breaches, identity theft, and fraud risks are high.
 IT enables data to be breached or hacked by the hackers and hence identity fraud
impact transport industry’s business and affected people lives (Fortune, 2018).

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IT usage for the maintenance or monitoring of the Uber transport business
 As we know that transport fuel cost always comes under the maintenance operation of
the transport business and by using IT fuel cost gets minimized by a huge percentage
of the total operating expenses of the Uber (Schultz, 2009).
 IT applications offer ecological awareness by using various apps as well as
environmental tracker software so that companies like Uber can utilize the monitoring
data for the eco-friendly maintenance and future sustainable development
(Khosrowshahi, 2017).
 IT enables internet synchronization for effective monitoring and maintenance as well.
 IT can provide IS security solutions at a better level so as to avoid IS breaches and
malware in the transport business
 IT can effectively improve Transport Information Systems (Picanso, 2010).
 IT monitoring allows Uber to notify any data breach to its users and stakeholders as
soon as possible (Australian Government, 2018).
Conclusion
In conclusion, with the help of analyzing a recent IS breach case of Uber transport company
this report has identified the significance of IT for transport business worldwide. In addition
to that, the data breach case of the Uber Company has been explored in detail to get the IT
impacts on transport businesses like Uber. Benefits of IT for a transport company along with
the risks associated with the IT applications have been discussed in the context of Uber being
an emerging transport company. This report has revealed that IT implementation is
essentially important for each and every industry including the transport industry. Apart from
this, the IT role in the monitoring and maintenance operations of the Uber Company has been
discussed successfully. In whole, IT impact on transport business has been demonstrated with
the help of a recent incident of IS breach of Uber’s users and drivers data breach case.
References
Australian Government, 2018. Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. [Online] Available at:
https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy-law/privacy-act/notifiable-data-breaches-scheme [Accessed
16 October 2018].

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Blystone, D., 2018. The Story of Uber. [Online] Available at:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/111015/story-uber.asp.
Bogle, , 2018. Data breaches: If a company has lost your personal info, they now have to tell
you. [Online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-02-22/-companies-
must-inform-consumers-of-data-breaches/9462170 [Accessed 16 October 2018].
Elliott, R.E., 2015. Sharing App or Regulation Hackney: Defining Uber Technologies, Inc. J.
Corp. L., 41, p.727.
Fortune, 2018. Uber Data Breach Exposed Personal Information of 20 Million Users.
[Online] Available at: http://fortune.com/2018/04/12/uber-data-breach-security/ [Accessed 27
May 2019].
Khosrowshahi, , 2017. 2016 Data Security Incident. [Online] Available at:
https://www.uber.com/newsroom/2016-data-incident/ [Accessed 16 October 2018].
Laurell, C. & Sandstorm, C., 2016. Analysing Uber in social media—disruptive technology
or institutional disruption? International Journal of Innovation Management, 20(5),
p.1640013.
Lee, D., 2017. Uber concealed huge data breach. [Online] Available at:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-42075306 [Accessed 17 October 2018].
Picanso, K.E., 2010. Protecting information security under a uniform data breach notification
law. Fordham L., (Rev.), p.355.
Schultz, R.A., 2009. Contemporary issues in ethics and information technology. Ed. ed.
London: IGI Global.
Taschler, E., 2015. A crumbling monopoly: the rise of Uber and the Taxi Industry’s struggle
to survive. Chicago: Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies, pp.1-8.
The AME group, 2018. Data Security Breach: 5 Consequences for Your Business. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theamegroup.com/security-breach/ [Accessed 16 October 2018].
Vacca, J., 2012. Computer and information security handbook. London: Newnes.
Wong , J.C., 2017. Uber concealed massive hack that exposed data of 57m users and drivers.
[Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/21/uber-data-hack-

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cyber-attack [Accessed 16 October 2018].