Ticketmaster fined £1.25m after up to 9.4million hit by chatbot data breach

Ticketmaster has been fined £1.25million by the UK’s data watchdog for failing to keep the personal details of 9.4 million customers secure.

The Information Commissioner’s Office found that the company failed to put appropriate security measures in place to prevent a cyber-attack on a chat-bot installed on its online payment page.

The data breach, which included names, payment card numbers, expiry dates and CVV numbers, potentially affected 9.4million of Ticketmaster’s customers across Europe including 1.5million in the UK.

Some  60,000 payment cards belonging to Barclays Bank customers had been subjected to known fraud. 

Another 6,000 cards were replaced by Monzo Bank after it suspected fraudulent use.

In it’s ruling the ICO found that Ticketmaster failed to:

* Assess the risks of using a chat-bot on its payment page

* Identify and implement appropriate security measures to negate the risks

* Identify the source of suggested fraudulent activity in a timely manner

Ticketmaster has said it would appeal against the fine. 

Today’s fine follows record penalties levied by the watchdog against BA (£20 million) and Marriott hotels (£18.4million) last month.

James Dipple-Johnstone, Deputy Commissioner said: “When customers handed over their personal details, they expected Ticketmaster to look after them. But they did not.

“Ticketmaster should have done more to reduce the risk of a cyber-attack. Its failure to do so meant that millions of people in the UK and Europe were exposed to potential fraud.

“The £1.25milllion fine we’ve issued today will send a message to other organisations that looking after their customers’ personal details safely should be at the top of their agenda.”

The breach began in February 2018 when Monzo Bank customers reported fraudulent transactions. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Barclaycard, Mastercard and American Express all reported suggestions of fraud to Ticketmaster. But the company failed to identify the problem.

In total, it took Ticketmaster nine weeks from being alerted to possible fraud to monitoring the network traffic through its online payment page.