Data Backup Digest

Online ticket outlets have revolutionized the way consumers gain access to concerts, movies and live entertainment of all types. Gone are the days when concertgoers camped outside of their local ticket booths to score the best seats – they've been replaced by online waiting rooms and aggressive ticket bots.

While supporters of the technology see these platforms as a quick, secure and easy way of finding good seats to their favorite productions, others claim they make it easier for scalpers to buy and hold tickets in bulk. There are also issues with online privacy. As we've seen in the past, no company is untouchable when it comes to motivated hackers – including outlets like Ticketfly.

More Money, More Problems

Ticketfly isn't exactly a household name. They're very much operating in the shadows of ticketing giants like Ticketmaster and even secondhand markets like StubHub – but their popularity had seen significant growth in early 2018.

Andrew Dreskin, CEO and co-founder of Ticketfly, talked about the newfound popularity in a statement by saying: "There is a once-in-a-lifetime moment of disruption happening in the live events space, and Ticketfly is clearly at the center of it. Technology has forever changed how we listen to music today, but we’ve only scratched the surface of how it can transform live events, for both promoters and fans.”

But 2018 is when the problems first began for Ticketfly. The company was hit with multiple cyber attacks, occurring in late May and early June – both of which resulted in significant downtime and, as a result, lost sales for the company.

Comprised Account Information

The damage wasn't limited to Ticketfly alone. A hacker responsible for the attack later posted the personal information of more than 26 million site users to a public server for everyone to see. Included in these datasets were email addresses, full names, phone numbers and personal home addresses.

Although a representative with Ticketfly confirmed the attacks and verified the comprised data, they quickly pointed out that no passwords or credit card numbers were included. While it's clear that this data wasn't included in the initial leak, the hacker claims to have more information that is ready to be released if Ticketfly doesn't pay the ransom of one bitcoin.

Ticketfly quickly responded to the incident through an official statement. It reads: "Last week we learned that Ticketfly.com was the target of a cyber incident. In consultation with leading third-party forensic and cybersecurity experts, we confirmed that some customer information has been compromised as part of the incident, including names, addresses, emails, and phone numbers of Ticketfly fans. We understand the importance our customers place on the privacy and security of their data and we deeply regret any unauthorized access to it. This is an ongoing investigation and we will continue to provide updates as appropriate."

Continuing On...For Now

It's unclear whether or not the ransom has been paid at the time of this writing, but the site is up and running at full capacity. For more information, or to try out Ticketfly's service for yourself, please visit their official website at www.ticketfly.com.