Ticketmaster Hack Demands $8M Ransom After Taylor Swift Tour Data Breach
Live Nation faces escalating demands from the ShinyHunters hacking group, who have increased their ransom from $1 million to $8 million after discovering Taylor Swift Eras Tour ticketing data among the breached information.
Ticketmaster search interface with Taylor Swift
The hackers claim to have obtained 193 million ticketing barcodes, including 440,000 Taylor Swift tickets valued at $22 billion. The breach specifically includes data from the Eras Tour events at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, scheduled for November 1-3, 2024.
The stolen data reportedly includes:
- 980 million sales orders
- 680 million order details
- 1.2 billion party lookup records
- 440 million unique email addresses
- 4 million uncased and de-duped records
- 560 million Address Verification System records
- 400 million encrypted credit card details with partial information
This breach poses significant security risks, as the stolen data contains barcode values and seat details that could be used to create counterfeit tickets. Similar incidents have already caused chaos, as seen at a Bad Bunny concert in Mexico City in 2022.
The compromised information also includes host account creation dates and VAX account numbers, making users vulnerable to phishing attempts and social engineering attacks. Security experts consider this breach potentially the largest non-scrape breach of customer Personally Identifiable Information to date, comparable in scale to the Equifax hack.
Hooded hacker in dark clothing
Hacker suspect arrested with computer money
Gavel in courtroom