Ticketfly hacked: Personal data, email addresses of more than 26 million users compromised

Online ticketing service TicketFly was targeted by hackers last week who stole users' personal information and defaced its website. The attacker left behind a message on the service's compromised homepage that read: "Your security down, I'm not sorry. Next time I will publish database."

Parent company Eventbrite said at the time that it was investigating the "cyber incident", but did not provide any specific details about the hack, how it was carried out or what data was compromised.

However, the hacker posted several Ticketfly database files to a public server which security researcher Troy Hunt said contained 26,151,608 email addresses. The founder of Have I Been Pwned also said many users' names, phone numbers, home and billing addresses were also included. The data files did not include any passwords or credit card details.

The alleged hacker behind the breach told Motherboard that they initially reached out to Ticketfly prior to the breach, notified them of a vulnerability and demanded a ransom of 1 Bitcoin to help them patch the issue. However, when Ticketfly failed to respond to the emails, the hacker defaced their site.

Ticketfly has since confirmed the breach saying it is working with "leading third-party forensic and cybersecurity experts" to investigate and address the issue.

"We understand the importance our customers place on the privacy and security of their data and we deeply regret any unauthorized access to it," Ticketfly said in a statement. "We assure you we are taking this very seriously and are committed to providing updates as appropriate."

At the time of writing, Ticketfly's website and app are still offline. The service has been offline for six days so far. Eventbrite seems to be functioning normally.

"We're working to bring ticketfly.com back up as soon as possible," the message on the site reads. "In the meantime, we encourage you to keep checking in on your favorite venue/promoters' websites, social media channels, or box offices. Shows are on and tickets are available online and onsite.