Long queues, seats that disappear quicker than you can click, and laughably expensive resale prices … it’s no secret that trying to get tickets on Ticketmaster can be a draining experience for you and your bank account. But using the site might have taken even more out of customers than we thought. Per the BBC and The Verge, this week, hackers operating under the name ShinyHunters put what they claimed to be the personal data (including home addresses, phone numbers, and partial credit card details) of around 560 million Ticketmaster users up for sale online. On May 31, Live Nation confirmed via a regulatory filing that it experienced a breach on May 20 that primarily impacted data from its Ticketmaster subsidiary, and that a “criminal threat actor†began trying to sell alleged Ticketmaster data on the dark web on May 27.
In the filing, Live Nation said it is working to “mitigate risk†to users and cooperating with law enforcement, adding, “We continue to evaluate the risks and our remediation efforts are ongoing.†The company also said it will notify users about the unauthorized access of personal information as “appropriate.†In the meantime, Live Nation apparently plans to continue business as usual, writing, “As of the date of this filing, the incident has not had, and we do not believe it is reasonably likely to have, a material impact on our overall business operations or on our financial condition or results of operations.†Which begs the question, what would it take to hurt Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s pockets? It’s definitely food for thought, given that the U.S. government is currently suing to try to split them up over allegations that they monopolize markets.