The Australian government is investigating claims made by a hacking group, ShinyHunters, that they have stolen the details of 560 million customers from the global events company Ticketmaster. The group announced on an online forum that the stolen data includes names, addresses, phone numbers, and partial credit card details of customers. They have reportedly made the data available for a “one-time sale” of US$500,000.
“The National Office of Cyber Security is engaging with Ticketmaster to understand the incident,” said an Australian government spokesperson in a statement. The spokesperson also urged individuals with specific inquiries to contact Ticketmaster directly.
The FBI has offered its assistance to Australian authorities, as confirmed by a spokesperson from the US embassy.
ShinyHunters gained notoriety in 2020-21 for selling massive amounts of customer records from more than 60 companies, according to the US Department of Justice. In January, a court in Seattle sentenced Sebastien Raoult, a French computer hacker and member of ShinyHunters, to three years in prison and ordered him to pay over $5 million in restitution. Raoult pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. US prosecutors indicated that the extensive hacking activities led to millions of dollars in losses for victim companies and unquantifiable additional losses for hundreds of millions of individuals whose data was sold to other criminals.
AFP has contacted Ticketmaster for comment, but the authenticity of the dataset offered by ShinyHunters has not yet been verified.
Katina Michael, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Wollongong, noted that hacking incidents are affecting more people with increasingly severe consequences. She warned that the number of people impacted by such hacks could grow to one billion in the future. Michael emphasized that governments, companies, and consumers are not doing enough to protect themselves, highlighting the importance of basic protection mechanisms such as two-factor authentication.
Ticketmaster, based in California, operates one of the largest online ticket sales platforms globally. Recently, the US Department of Justice filed a significant antitrust lawsuit seeking to dismantle Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s alleged monopoly in the music industry. Ticketmaster’s pricing practices, which include high fees and a lack of alternatives, have long been a political issue in the United States, with calls for greater market competition.
The Australian government continues to investigate the claims, with both national and international support to ensure the protection and security of consumer data.
