Ticketmaster Hack Reveals Larger Breach than Previously Thought
The Ticketmaster hack that occurred earlier this year has turned out to be much bigger than initially reported. Cybersecurity publication Hackread reveals that the hacker group ShinyHunters has updated their ransom demand, now asking for $8 million from Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation Entertainment. It seems that ShinyHunters has discovered that the hacked data is much more valuable than they originally believed.
According to ShinyHunters, the group has obtained a staggering 193 million ticket barcodes, valued at over $22.6 billion in total. This includes 440,000 tickets for Taylor Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour and an additional 30 million tickets for 65,000 other events. The hacked information also includes 400 million encrypted credit cards, 440 million unique email addresses, and 680 million order details. ShinyHunters claims that this breach is “the largest publicly disclosed non-scrape breach of customer personally identifiable information of all time.”
This latest revelation adds to the mounting troubles faced by Ticketmaster in recent times. Last year, the company was the subject of a U.S. Senate hearing investigating the lack of competition in the live music industry. The U.S. Justice Department subsequently filed a lawsuit against Live Nation, accusing it of violating antitrust laws. The complaint states that over 70 percent of tickets sold or resold for major U.S. concert venues in 2022 were handled by Ticketmaster.
In addition to the legal challenges, Ticketmaster has also faced criticism from Taylor Swift fans. The presale for Swift’s Eras Tour in 2022 was marred by issues, leading to the cancellation of the public ticket sale. Fans accused Ticketmaster of operating an “anticompetitive scheme” and deceiving fans by overselling presale codes. Swift herself expressed frustration with the situation, stating that while millions of fans were able to purchase tickets, many felt that the process was unnecessarily difficult.
As the fallout from the Ticketmaster hack continues, it remains to be seen how Live Nation will respond to ShinyHunters’ increased ransom demand. The incident serves as a stark reminder of the importance of robust cybersecurity measures to protect customer data and prevent such breaches in the future.