Ticketmaster, the global ticketing behemoth owned by Live Nation, has been hit with a massive data breach. A hacker collective known as ShinyHunters claims to have pilfered the personal details of a whopping 560 million customers worldwide, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and partial credit card information.
The audacious cybercriminals are now holding Ticketmaster to ransom, demanding a staggering $500,000 payment to prevent the stolen data from being peddled on the dark web, the seedy underbelly of the internet where illegal goods and services are traded.
Anna Collard, SVP Content Strategy and Evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa, a cybersecurity firm, weighed in on the gravity of the situation. “The extent of the data accessed by the cyber criminals remains uncertain at this point. As Ticketmaster is a leading online ticketing platform worldwide, anyone who has ever bought a ticket on Ticketmaster should remain vigilant,” she warned.
The Ticketmaster breach is linked to attacks against its cloud provider Snowflake, which has impacted at least six companies thus far, including the financial services giant Santander.
Collard advised customers to closely monitor their credit card accounts and change passwords if they were used across multiple platforms. She also stressed the importance of enabling multi-factor authentication where possible to bolster account security.
“Watch out for bogus emails, messages, and phone calls,” Collard cautioned. “Cybercriminals often use the information they have to deceive victims into sharing more personal details. Some scammers may take advantage of the fear caused by a hack to manipulate you into providing more information.”
Ticketmaster customers are advised to only respond to official communication from the company’s official websites, ticketmaster.co.za or ticketmaster.com, and to be wary of unsolicited messages or emails demanding immediate action.
The breach has far-reaching implications, as Ticketmaster handles ticket sales for high-profile events worldwide, including the upcoming concerts of Roxette, Andrea Bocelli, and the Rugby Championship Test between the Springboks and All Blacks in September.
