Ticketmaster Sued Over Massive Data Breach

Ticketmaster is facing a class action lawsuit over the massive data breach the company suffered from the hacker group ShinyHunters earlier this year.

Several firms have filed class action suits against Ticketmaster in recent months since the data breach first came to light earlier this year, the most recent of which was filed in federal court in California on Friday. That latter suit, reviewed by Rolling Stone, alleges that the breach was “a direct result of [Ticketmaster’s] failure to implement adequate and reasonable data protection procedures.” 

ShinyHunters claimed that it had obtained personal data of 560 million Ticketmaster accounts through third-party cloud data company Snowflake, ransoming the data for $500,000. Among the data included in the breach were names, addresses, and phone numbers, as well as some limited credit card data. The suit states that Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation Entertainment had said that the hacker group gained access to the data in April. Live Nation acknowledged the data breach in a filing with the Security Exchange Commission at the end of May.

The suit called the breach Ticketmaster faced “avoidable” and said that the company “could and should have implemented” several preventative measures to combat hack attempts. Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment on the recent class action suit on Monday.

The new suit seeks damages, including actual, nominal, statutory, consequential, and punitive damages of an unspecified amount, alongside attorneys’ fees and other relief.

Ticketmaster wasn’t the only company hacked through the Snowflake servers, with Advance Auto Parts and ticketing company TEG suffering as well. Back in May, a rep for Snowflake told Rolling Stone that the company has “no evidence suggesting this activity was caused by any vulnerability, misconfiguration, or breach of Snowflake’s product.”

All of the Ticketmaster class action suits involving the breach will be litigated together in Montana as a multidistrict litigation, part of a broader case involving other companies sued over the Snowflake breach. The listed causes of action in the suits against Live Nation include negligence and breach of implied contract.

The class action isn’t the only legal challenge Ticketmaster currently faces. The Department of Justice sued Live Nation earlier this year, claiming the combined ticketing and promotion company acts as a monopoly. Live Nation has consistently denied the claims.