Liverpool suspends ticket sales after cyber attack

Liverpool has suspended ticket sales for members until further notice after falling victim to a cyberattack.

On Wednesday, ticket sales began for Premier League home games in the first half of the season for members who attended 13 or more league games at Anfield last season.

But after just an hour, fans were left frustrated when sales were halted due to what Liverpool described as a “serious technical issue with the ticketing system”. An original plan to resume sales later on Wednesday had to be abandoned, and today’s sale to members who were successful in a vote was also put on hold.

Liverpool has apologised to the affected fans via email and said they had been the target of a “sustained, sophisticated bot attack that was different from any attack we have experienced before”.

An investigation has been launched to determine how the bot attack, a type of cyberattack that uses automated scripts, was launched on the system. It is unclear whether the motivation was simply to cause disruption or to attempt to fraudulently purchase tickets.

The system is operated by a third-party provider who will now implement additional security measures before Liverpool announce a date for the safe resumption of sales in the coming weeks.

“This is extremely disappointing and frustrating as we have made a number of significant improvements to our supplier’s ticketing system to prevent this type of cybercrime,” the Liverpool ticketing team’s email continued.

“We will continue to work with our fan groups to improve sales processes and systems and consider all options that will ultimately provide our fans with the experience they deserve.

“We are sorry that we were unable to prevent unacceptable fraudulent activities that impacted our genuine and valued supporters.”

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