Hacker Leaks 440,000 Taylor Swift Eras Tour Tickets, Demands Ransom
The group claims to have around 30 million other event passes in addition to the Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets.
A hacking group called ShinyHunters, believed to be behind a recent Ticketmaster data breach affecting half a billion people, now claims to have illegally obtained 440,000 tickets to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.
In a post on BreachForums, the group has increased its initial ransom demand from about $1 million to $8 million, considering the potential damage the leak could cause to Ticketmaster.
Besides the Eras Tour tickets, the group reportedly has around 30 million additional tickets for over 65,000 events, along with sensitive customer information such as emails.
The Eras Tour Ticket Leak
In May 2024, ShinyHunters demanded a $500,000 ransom from LiveNation, the company owning Ticketmaster, claiming access to the records of 560 million users.
In June, LiveNation confirmed the hack's authenticity by sending a data breach notification to the Office of the District Attorney of Maine.
However, it now seems the breach is broader and more severe than initially thought.
“To celebrate the Fourth of July, we present to you 440K Taylor Swift Eras tour tickets,” the group announced in a recent BreachForums post, ominously suggesting that the singer would be “going to congress” instead of performing due to their attack.
According to Hackread, the total value of the stolen tickets is a staggering $22 billion, prompting ShinyHunters to raise its ransom demands to $8 million. The additional 30 million tickets extracted from Ticketmaster systems are estimated to be worth around $4.6 billion.
What Information Did the Hackers Steal?
When a major hack happens, the stolen data isn't always very sensitive on its own and often needs to be combined with other information to be useful. However, in this case, the hackers seem to have taken a massive amount of data from Ticketmaster's systems.
The hacker group, ShinyHunters, claims they have:
- 980 million sales orders
- Details on 680 million individual orders
- 1.2 billion records from party lookups
- Over 400 million email addresses
- Millions of records from address verification systems
Additionally, they report having partial details on 400 million encrypted credit cards. ShinyHunters say this theft is “the largest publicly disclosed non-scrape breach of customer PII (personally identifiable information) ever.”
What to Do if You’re Affected
Ticketmaster advises customers to stay alert and protect themselves from identity theft and fraud by regularly checking their accounts, statements, and free credit reports for any suspicious activity.
The company is also offering a year of free identity monitoring services through TransUnion. To benefit from this, you need to enroll within 90 days of receiving the data breach notification.
If you think you might be affected by this breach, it's a good idea to take advantage of this offer and be extra cautious with any emails you receive.
