Ticketmaster appears to have suffered a major data breach, resulting in the loss of sensitive data of hundreds of millions of users.
a report of Hackreadclaims that a group known as ShinyHunters published a 1.3TB database of compromised customer data, on the recently reopened criminal site BreachForums.
The database contained sensitive information about 560 million users, including payment data, but also people's names, postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, ticket sales and event details, order information and even data partial payment cards for sale. Partial payment card data includes cardholder names, the last four digits of the cards, expiration dates, and some customer fraud details.
Publicity stunt
The hacking group asks for $500,000 in exchange for the database.
Before offering the database for sale, ShinyHunters contacted Ticketmaster-Live Nation in an extortion attempt, the group told Hackread; However, the company reportedly did not respond to the group's attempt to communicate.
The timing of the leak is quite curious, given the recent relaunch of BreachForums, one of the world's most popular underground hacking forums, just weeks after it was seized by the FBI and one of its key administrators, alias Baphomet, allegedly arrested. .
The other key administrator was none other than ShinyHunters, a hacking collective that boasted of being beyond the reach of the FBI in this case.
After BreachForums closed, the same group said it would restart it, so today's leak could very well be a publicity stunt to get hackers interested in the new forum.
$500,000 may seem like a lot of money, but for hacking collectives with deeper pockets, it could be a worthwhile investment. The information found there could be used in different ways, including phishing attacks, identity theft, and more, potentially netting buyers millions of dollars.
