A class action lawsuit has been filed against Live Nation, accusing it of not securing user information after an April 2024 hack of Ticketmaster that harvested the personal info of more than 560 million customers. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the lawsuit was filed in California federal court on Friday (October 11) and demands at least $5 million in damages. Ticketmaster allegedly took nearly two months to uncover the hack, then another two months to inform customers their information had been compromised.
THR credited the attack to the hacker group ShinyHunters, which exploited vulnerabilities with Ticketmaster’s third-party server host, Snowflake, and threatened to leak the info on the dark web if not paid a $500,000 ransom. According to the lawsuit, Ticketmaster did not ensure that Snowflake had taken adequate security measures to protect user data, and retained personal information that it should have deleted. That information was also being sold to business partners and data brokers.
ShinyHunters has also been credited with hacks of AT&T, GitHub, and Pizza Hut, stealing over 900 million customer records. The stolen information can be used in further identity theft, such as opening fraudulent credit cards and other loans.
Ticketmaster, which is part of Live Nation, is also the subject of another lawsuit from the US Department of Justice, alleging that the two companies’ partnership constitutes a monopoly employing illegal means to suppress competition.
