The American group Live Nation, parent company of the concert and show ticket sales platform Ticketmaster, has informed the American Stock Exchange Police (SEC) that the company has been hacked, according to a document consulted on Friday by the AFP.
• Read also: Australian government investigates cybersecurity ‘issue’ with Ticketmaster
• Read also: US government attacks Live Nation for anticompetitive practices
The Australian government had announced the day before that it had opened an investigation into a cybersecurity “problem”, after a group of hackers claimed to have accessed the personal data of 560 million customers of the platform.
The group of hackers world-famous “ShinyHunters” published evidence of the hack on the “dark web”, the clandestine part of the Internet, claiming to have stolen the personal data of 560 million customers, according to a screenshot widely distributed on the social networks.
The cybercriminals demanded a ransom of $500,000.
In the document filed with the SEC, Live Nation claims to have been informed on May 20 of the hacking of its Ticketmaster ticketing platform, and to have called on specialized companies to determine the nature of the breach.
The group added that it had confirmation on Monday that the pirates, without specifying whether or not they were ShinyHunters, intended to sell the data recovered from the “dark web”.
The stolen data reportedly included names, addresses, emails, phone numbers and the last four digits of customers’ credit card numbers, as well as their expiration dates.
“To date, the incident has not had, and we reasonably expect will not have, a material impact on our business or financial results. We continue to evaluate the risks, and our efforts to address them are ongoing,” the SEC filing said.
The FBI has offered its help to the Australian authorities to shed light on this affair, a spokesperson for the United States embassy in Canberra told AFP on Thursday.
ShinyHunters rose to prominence in 2020 when they began posting massive amounts of customer information from more than 60 companies online, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
California-based Ticketmaster operates one of the largest online ticketing platforms in the world.
The company is the subject of legal proceedings launched by the American authorities, who accuse Live Nation of anti-competitive practices in the organization of concerts as well as via its ticketing platform.
Ticketmaster’s pricing practices, with high fees and a lack of alternatives, have long been a political issue in the United States, and little has been done to open the market to greater competition.
