Ticketmaster refutes claims from the dark web that barcodes were stolen at Taylor Swift concerts

Ticketmaster has denied claims made on the dark web that hackers had access to the barcodes of tickets for several upcoming Taylor Swift concerts and other events.

On Friday, a hacker allegedly offered event barcodes for Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” concert dates in New Orleans, Miami and Indianapolis for sale.

The barcodes are usually scanned at the entrance to events. In total, the hacker offered about 170,000 barcodes for sale, about 20,000 of them per show.

The hacker also threatened Ticketmaster with more leaks unless they were paid $2 million – claiming he had 30 million more barcodes for NFL games, Sting concerts and more.

A Ticketmaster spokesperson refuted the claims made in the article in a comment to Recorded Future News.

“Ticketmaster’s SafeTix technology protects tickets by automatically updating a new and unique barcode every few seconds so it cannot be stolen or copied,” the spokesperson said.

“This is just one of many fraud protection measures we implement to ensure ticket security.”

The spokesperson also denied allegations in media reports that the company had engaged in ransom negotiations with the hacker, saying that the company had never negotiated with the hacker and had never offered the person any money.

Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, confirmed last month that the company’s account on data storage platform Snowflake had been hacked.

Hackers on the dark web claimed to have a 1.3 terabyte database containing information on approximately 560 million Ticketmaster users, including names, addresses, emails and phone numbers, as well as event details and information about specific orders.

The theft was part of a larger theft campaign targeting approximately 165 of Snowflake’s customers. Some of the data stolen from these companies was offered for sale by the same hacker behind this recent post about event barcodes.

Learn more.