Uber Breach, why did they conceal it?

So it seems that Uber has had a major breach and potentially 57 million customer details have been compromised.

It appears that they knew and they have paid the hackers who obtained the information a ransom fee to make this all go away again, I mean this happened in October 2016 well over a year ago, why has it taken this long to be release and how was this released.

Uber have set up a page with all the details.

Did they really think that a little amount of hush money would go away, or what was to stop the hackers then coming back for more, and they may of well had copies.  They should of just come out and been honest, people would of been more forgiving.

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