With how ingrained shopping and doing other things online are in our lives, this means that a ton of companies have access to our personal data. Ideally, they’re taking care to keep it safe, but sometimes, things happen. Well, it looks like a thing just happened: As Consequence notes, the hacking group ShinyHunters claims to have stolen the personal data of 560 million Ticketmaster customers.
ShinyHunters says they’ve stolen 1.3 terrabytes of data from Ticketmaster, including a lot of sensitive information: usernames, contact information, order info, and partial payment info like the last four digits of credit card numbers and expiration dates. They are offering to sell their haul for $500,000.
Ticketmaster themselves have yet to acknowledge the supposed hacking, but a spokesperson for Australia’s Department Of Home Affairs told the Australian Broadcasting Department it’s “working with Ticketmaster to understand the incident.”
This news arrives while Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation is already not having an awesome time: It was reported last week that the US Department Of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, “accusing [Live Nation Entertainment] of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live entertainment industry.”
Public sentiment really turned against Ticketmaster in 2022, when the platform had significant issues as tickets for Taylor Swift’s wildly popular The Eras Tour went on sale.