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The Australian ticketing giant has sent letters to an unknown number of customers regarding a “cyber incident” impacting their names, dates of birth, and emails.
Just days after international ticketing company Ticketmaster was hit by a data breach affecting more than 500 million people, Australian event company Ticketek has revealed it has also suffered its own breach.
Ticketek sent emails to impacted customers on Friday evening, May 31, with the Minister for Cyber Security, Claire O’Neil, also confirming the hack.
According to the letter, the actual hack took place on a cloud platform “hosted by a reputable, global third-party supplier”.
“We would like to reassure you that Ticketek has secure encryption methods in place for all passwords and your Ticketek account has not been compromised,” Ticketek said in its email.
Ticketek said that it uses “secure encryption” methods on credit card details as well, and that all transactions are handled by a separate payment system, which the hack has not impacted. Some customer data has been compromised, however.
“The available evidence at this time indicates that, from a privacy perspective, your name, date of birth, and email address may have been impacted,” Ticketek said.
The company has not come forward with how many of its customers have been affected, but did say that it is working with the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Australian Information Commissioner, and the National Office of Cyber Security.
Cyber Security Minister Claire O’Neil commented on the incident on Friday evening as well.
“Earlier today, Ticketek advised the National Office of Cyber Security that they have experienced a cyber security incident impacting Ticketek Australia, and data belonging to their customers has been stolen,” O’Neil said in a series of posts on X.
The minister said those concerned about the incident should make their inquiries with Ticketek directly.
Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness, the National Cyber Security Coordinator also took to social media, noting on LinkedIn that this incident is not connected to the recent Ticketmaster data breach.
“Today, I was advised by Ticketek of a cyber incident impacting Ticketek Australia and its account holder information,” LTGEN McGuinness said.
“Ticketek is a different company to Ticketmaster, which is a subsidiary of Live Nation Entertainment.
“The Australian Signals Directorate and Australian Federal Police are also aware of the incident.”
LTGEN McGuinness praised Ticketek for its response.
“I welcome the timely approach taken by Ticketek to notifying its affected customers,” LTGEN McGuinness said.
No threat actor has taken responsibility for the hack, and the data does not appear to have been published anywhere at the time of writing.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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