Hacks and data breaches are so common now they barely feel like news anymore, but details are emerging about one that may be more serious than most.
Catch up: Hacker group ShinyHunters claims to have stolen data on hundreds of millions of customers of Ticketmaster and Santander Bank.
- ShinyHunters said it had identifying information on 560,000 Ticketmaster users, including credit card numbers, along with 30 million Santander customers.
- Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, confirmed a data breach had occurred.
Why it matters: Cybersecurity experts believe the breach is linked to a larger attack cloud hosting provider Snowflake, and may impact many more companies beyond just Ticketmaster and Santander.
- Cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock reported ShinyHunters’ claims that they had breached Snowflake’s security using stolen credentials from a single employee and accessed data from as many as 400 other companies using Snowflake.
- Along with Ticketmaster and Santander, Snowflake counts thousands of blue-chip companies among its customers, including Mastercard and Capital One.
Snowflake says otherwise, claiming ShinyHunters accessed the data through poorly secured customer accounts, not a broader vulnerability in Snowflake’s products (though it did report “an increase in cyber threat activity” targeting its customers).
What’s next: The scale of the breach is TBD, but in the meantime, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to update your passwords for any accounts you want to make extra sure are secure.