Australia apparently in talks with Ticketmaster over hacking ‘incident’ | News

The group demanded a ransom of $500,000 and described it as a “one-time sale,” according to the post.

The stolen data allegedly included names, addresses, emails, phone numbers and the last four digits of customers’ credit card numbers including expiration dates.

“The National Office of Cyber ​​​​Security is working with Ticketmaster to understand the incident,” an Australian government spokesperson said in a statement.

Those with “specific requests” are encouraged to contact Ticketmaster directly.

In January, a Los Angeles court sentenced French computer hacker Sebastien Raoult, who was part of the ShinyHunters criminal gang, to prison.

He was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay over $5 million in restitution after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

US prosecutors said the extensive hacking attacks caused millions of dollars in damages to the companies affected and “immeasurable additional harm” to hundreds of millions of people whose data was sold to other criminals.

AFP has contacted Ticketmaster for comment.

Hacker attacks are affecting more and more people and have increasingly serious consequences, Katina Michael, professor of cybersecurity at the University of Wollongong, told AFP.

The number of hacked people “will increase, it could be up to a billion in the future,” she said.

Governments, businesses and consumers are not doing enough to protect themselves and are not investing enough in basic protections like two-factor authentication, Michael warned.

Ticketmaster, a California-based company, operates one of the largest online ticket sales platforms in the world.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a major antitrust lawsuit last week to break up an alleged monopoly in the live music industry held by Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster’s pricing policy, with its high fees and lack of alternatives, has long been a political issue in the US. In the past, little has been done to open the market to more competition.