Philip Martin Takes the CISO Chair at Uber
The former Coinbase security chief steps into one of tech's more scrutinised security roles, bringing a résumé that spans crypto, defence contracting, and cloud infrastructure.
Uber has a new CISO. Philip Martin, who previously led security at Coinbase, has joined the ride-share giant to head its cybersecurity and enterprise security organisation.
Martin's background is unusually varied. He logged time at Palantir and Amazon before Coinbase, and holds U.S. Army service on his record as well. That mix — military discipline, data-analytics exposure at Palantir, cloud-scale operations at Amazon, and the adversarial-pressure cooker of a major crypto exchange — is the kind of profile boards ask for after bad headlines.
Uber has had bad headlines.
The company's security history is well-documented in court records and regulatory filings. A 2016 breach affecting 57 million driver and rider accounts was concealed from regulators for more than a year; former CSO Joe Sullivan was convicted in 2022 on obstruction and concealment charges related to that cover-up. A 2022 intrusion, attributed to Lapsus$-affiliated actor 'teapotuberhacker', exposed internal Slack, HackerOne bug reports, and cloud dashboards. The attacker used social engineering to compromise a contractor's credentials — a reminder that no perimeter controls fully compensate for weak identity hygiene.
Martin steps into that context. Coinbase, his most recent stop, operates under financial-sector regulatory scrutiny and has been a persistent target for SIM-swapping crews and nation-state phishing campaigns. Running security there is not a quiet job.
What his mandate looks like at Uber isn't public yet. The company hasn't issued a formal statement detailing scope or priorities. Whether his remit covers physical security, third-party risk, or just traditional infosec and enterprise IT remains unspecified.
The appointment lands as Uber continues expanding its freight, delivery, and autonomous-vehicle data operations — each carrying its own threat surface. Driver and rider PII at scale, payment rails, and real-time location data make the company a perennial target. A CISO with financial-sector and government-adjacent experience is a plausible answer to that exposure.
No ransom. No breach. Just a chair change. But in Uber's case, the chair has history.
