Joseph Sullivan allegedly paid off $100K to the hackers responsible for a 2016 data breach, which exposed PII of 57 million passengers and drivers.

A former Uber security executive has been charged for his role in the cover-up of a massive 2016 data breach, in which attackers accessed the company’s Amazon Web Services accounts and stole data associated with 57 million passengers and drivers.

The U.S. State Attorney for the Northern District of California has charged Palo Alto, Calif., resident Joseph Sullivan, 52, with obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony in connection with the attempted cover-up, which occurred when Sullivan was Uber’s chief security officer (CSO). The complaint alleges that Sullivan fraudulently paid off the hackers responsible via Uber’s bug bounty program.

United States Attorney David L. Anderson, who is prosecuting the case, castigated Sullivan’s alleged behavior in a press statement, saying that the state “will not tolerate illegal hush money payments.”

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