Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, confirmed that last month there was an attack on their database exposing personal details for more than 560 million customers.
According to Live Nation, the hacking group ShineyHunters claimed responsibility and demanded a half million dollar ransom be paid or they would release data to other (nefarious) parties. A spokesperson for Live Nation says they don’t anticipate any “material impact on their overall business operations or financial condition” but had less to say about how this breach will affect its hundreds of millions of customers. Optimistic researchers suggest that data stolen may not be overly sensitive (that is, no health records or complete financial records were released), however others note that this hack is part of a larger, ongoing hack involving a cloud service provider called Snowflake, which provides services to Ticketmaster as well as other large global firms. That is to say, the ultimate impact of this breach might not be known for months.
As the company conducts its risk assessments and remediations—and law enforcement worldwide continues its investigations—customers should continue to do their own mitigation. If you’ve used Ticketmaster in the past, continue to monitor your credit report and bank statements. Going forward, consider using one credit card for online purchases, use multi-factor authentication when placing orders, and log out of sites as soon as your purchase is complete.