Under pressure from 560 million users buying tickets for events worldwide, problems with temporary outages can be part and parcel of Ticketmaster’s service. The site, when it “goes down”, is quickly resurrected and millions of users presume their data is stored safely by Ticketmaster.
Citing “unauthorised activity” on its database, the company’s owner Live Nation issued an update over its current problems to shareholders, but not initially to customers or the media.
The hacker group ShinyHunters claimed accountability for the breach first – in which the personal data of 560 million customers was compromised – and is threatening a $500,000 ransom to prevent the data from being sold.
The stolen data is reported to include names, addresses, phone numbers, and partial credit card details of Ticketmaster users worldwide.
Live Nation, in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, revealed that on May 27, a criminal actor offered what they claimed to be company user data for sale on the dark web. The company is investigating the breach, although it has not confirmed the number of customers affected.
The breach was initially disclosed by hackers who advertised the data on Wednesday evening.
The Australian government and the FBI have offered assistance to Live Nation in addressing the issue, though they are working to mitigate risks for their own customers and notifying them about the unauthorised access.
Stakeholders have been reassured that the incident is not expected to have a material impact on their business operations or financial prospects. Selling out global events venues, in minutes for some artists, Ticketmaster is one of the largest distributors of e-tickets globally, onboarding millions of users’ personal data. This equally makes them a prime target for a massive hack in terms of global victims.
Researchers warn this hack may be part of a larger ongoing campaign involving cloud service provider Snowflake, which has reported increased cyber threats targeting its customer accounts.
Selling Taylor Swift tickets for her sell-out global tour, Live Nation faced security issues with another cyberattack last November, whilst ShinyHunters has previously been linked to several related high-profile data breaches.
