Live Nation confirms Ticketmaster data breach days after customer data went up for sale

Live Nation, the entertainment giant that owns Ticketmaster, finally confirmed a data breach on Friday, days after a hacking group claimed to have stolen information from millions of customers.

The news comes after the hacking group ShinyHunters posted on the dark web in late May, alleging they possessed data on 560 million Ticketmaster users and were willing to sell it for just $500,000.

The information was posted on BreachForums, a darknet marketplace that recently resurfaced after a global law enforcement operation took it down. The data supposedly includes names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Users’ ticket sales and event details, order information, and partial payment card data have also allegedly been breached, alongside payment data, including customer names, the last four digits of card numbers, credit card type, authentication type, expiration dates, and financial transactions.

Live Nation acknowledged the incident in a regulatory filing, stating they identified "unauthorized activity" within a third-party cloud database containing Ticketmaster data on May 20th. The company launched an investigation and confirmed a cybercriminal offered "company user data for sale" a week later.

While the exact nature of the stolen data and the number of affected users remain unclear, the potential impact is significant. A data breach of this scale could leave millions of customers vulnerable to identity theft, phishing scams, and even fraudulent ticket purchases.

Live Nation has faced criticism for the delay in publicly acknowledging the breach. The company hasn’t the week-long gap between identifying the issue and informing the public or authorities.

Ticketmaster is the world's largest ticket marketplace estimated to serve 80% of the U.S. ticketing market.

ShinyHunters, the group suspected to be behind the hack has been active since 2020 and is responsible for multiple high-profile breaches including Dating site MeetMindful (2.28 million users), AT&T (70 million subscribers) Tokopedia (90 million), Unacademy (10 million users), and Pixlr (1.9 million users). The group has also breached Microsoft in the past and stolen hundreds of gigabytes of source code.

It is suspected that ShinyHunters is the group currently running BreachForums after its re-emergence.