Ticketmaster, owned by Live Nation, has confirmed a significant hack that has the potential to impact 560 million customers. The breach, attributed to a group of hackers known as ShinyHunters, has resulted in the theft of personal information including names, addresses, phone numbers, and partial credit card details of Ticketmaster users globally.
The hackers are reportedly demanding a ransom of $500,000 to prevent the data from being sold to other parties. Live Nation revealed in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that on May 27, a criminal threat actor offered company user data for sale on the dark web.
The exact number of affected customers has not been officially confirmed by Live Nation. The breach came to light when hackers advertised the stolen data on Wednesday, with Ticketmaster subsequently notifying shareholders of the incident on Friday.
The Australian government has stepped in to assist Ticketmaster in addressing the issue, while the FBI has also offered support, although they have not provided any official comments on the matter. Live Nation stated that they are actively working to minimize risks for their customers and are informing users about the unauthorized access to their personal information.
Although the incident has not yet had a significant impact on Live Nation’s business operations or financial standing, the company continues to assess risks and conduct ongoing remediation efforts.
Notably, Ticketmaster is a prominent online ticket sales platform globally. This breach ranks among the largest in history in terms of the number of victims affected. However, the sensitivity of the compromised data remains uncertain.
Security researchers have highlighted that this hack is part of a broader cyberattack involving a cloud service provider named Snowflake, which is utilized by numerous large firms for data storage. Snowflake has alerted customers to an uptick in cyber threat activity targeting some accounts.
Furthermore, Santander recently confirmed that data from approximately 30 million customers was stolen by the same hacking group responsible for the Ticketmaster breach. The bank clarified that UK customer data was not impacted by the hack.
These interconnected hacks suggest a larger coordinated effort, with the potential for more breaches to be exposed. Data samples allegedly obtained in the breach have surfaced on BreachForums, a dark web platform frequented by hackers for trading stolen information.
