Ticketmaster hack leads Westpac NZ to replace customer cards

The New Zealand arm of the Westpac Bank is replacing the bank and credit cards of customers following the recent data security beach at ticketing giant Ticketmaster.

News website Stuff reported that Westpac has cancelled and reissued some 30,000 cards in response to the breach, which is considered low risk.

The move comes after a Westpac customer was the subject of an attempt to steal more than $14,000 from their account.

Westpac NZ’s Head of Financial Crime and Security Tiffany Ryan told Stuff “while the risk is low, Westpac NZ is in the process of proactively replacing around 30,000 cards, where we have concerns that a customer’s card details may have been compromised.”

Ryan stated that Westpac would reimburse any customers who had seen suspicious activity on their accounts, adding stated “we have strong fraud controls in place, but we wanted to take an extra proactive step to protect our customers and provide them with peace of mind around this issue."

News of the Ticketmaster data breach first broke in June, with up to 40,000 UK-based customers said to have been at risk of having their personal or payment information stolen.

Ticketmaster admitted at the time that it had been hacked by “malicious software” on third-party customer product Ibenta Technologies.