Live Nation confirms Ticketmaster customer information data breach

Global ticketing giant Ticketmaster has confirmed that it has suffered a data breach, potentially impacting hundreds of millions of customers around the world.

In a first statement following reports during the week that notorious hacking group ShinyHunters had obtained the personal and financial information of 560 million Ticketmaster customers, parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, said it had "identified unauthorised activity within a third-party cloud database environment."

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it first identified "unauthorised activity" on 20th May, a week before the hacking group posted about the breach on a dark web forum.

The statement added “we are working to mitigate risk to our users and the company, and have notified and are cooperating with law enforcement.”

Ticketmaster added that 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."

Following first reports on Wednesday, the Australian Department of Home Affairs then confirmed with the ABC it was investigating a "cyber incident involving Ticketmaster".

In addition, the Federal Government’s National Office of Cyber Security says it is engaging with Ticketmaster regarding the incident. The AFP news agency reported that the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigations has offered assistance to Australian authorities.

On Friday, rival company Ticketek Australia said the names of some of its customers, as well as their dates of birth and email addresses, may also have been accessed in a data breach.