Security News > 2021 > January > Ticketmaster To Pay $10 Million Fine For Hacking A Rival Company
Ticketmaster has agreed to pay a $10 million fine after being charged with illegally accessing computer systems of a competitor repeatedly between 2013 and 2015 in an attempt to "Cut off at the knees."
The allegations were first reported in 2017 after CrowdSurge sued Live Nation for antitrust violations, accusing Ticketmaster of accessing confidential business plans, contracts, client lists, and credentials of CrowdSurge tools.
According to court documents released on December 30, after being hired by Live Nation in 2013, Stephen Mead, who was CrowdSurge's general manager of U.S. operations, shared with Zeeshan Zaidi, the former head of Ticketmaster's artist services division, and another Ticketmaster employee the passwords to Artist Toolbox, an app that provided real-time data about tickets sold through the victim company.
An unnamed Ticketmaster executive said in an internal email the goal was to "Choke off" and "Steal" its signature clients by winning back the presale ticketing business for a second major artist that was a client of CrowdSurge.
Ticketmaster previously settled a lawsuit brought by Songkick in 2018 by agreeing to pay the company's owners $110 million and acquire its remaining intellectual property not sold to WMG for an undisclosed amount.
Besides paying the $10 million penalties, Ticketmaster is expected to maintain a compliance and ethics program to detect and prevent such unauthorized acquisition of confidential information belonging to its rivals.