The personal data of Canadian Ticketmaster customers may have been compromised. A sample of the hacked data shared with Global News Channel. The shared samples, allegedly stolen by infamous hacking group ShinyHunters, contains the personal information of tens of thousands of people, including full names, phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, partial credit card details, and transaction details.
According to the data, the majority of the data comes from customers in the United States, with Canadians being the second-largest demographic group, followed by Mexicans. A small amount of data originates from Europe, Asia, Australia, and Central and South America.
The hack is believed to have occurred when hackers gained access to a third-party cloud database environment containing Ticketmaster data. The database was hosted by Snowflake, a cloud-computing company that stores and analyzes enterprise data. Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, have not commented publicly on the breach.
The Government of Canada is monitoring the situation and takes protection of privacy very seriously
said the office of François-Philippe Champagne, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, in a statement to Global News.
The investigation into the hack suggests that the attack was a “targeted campaign directed at users with single-factor authentication.” The hackers used stolen credentials to gain access to the database, highlighting the importance of multi-factor authentication in preventing such breaches.
The Canadian government has been urged to implement harsher regulatory penalties and legislative requirements for cybersecurity measures in companies and organizations that handle sensitive, personal data.
In the wake of the hack, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have not responded to multiple emails from Global News regarding the data breach and whether Canadians’ data was leaked. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) has been in contact with Ticketmaster, but the office has yet to receive a formal report notifying the agency of breached Canadian data.
