The Information Commissioner鈥檚 Office (ICO) has fined Ticketmaster UK Limited 拢1.25m聽for failing to keep its customers鈥� personal data secure.
The ICO found said the fine comes after 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 failure to protect its customers’ information is a breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the ICO said.
The data breach, which included names, payment card numbers, expiry dates and CVV numbers, potentially affected 9.4m of Ticketmaster鈥檚 customers across Europe including 1.5m in the UK.
ICO investigators found that, as a result of the breach, 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.
The ICO reported that聽 Ticketmaster had failed to assess the risks of using a chat-bot on its payment page, to identify and implement appropriate security measures to negate the risks, and to identify the source of suggested fraudulent activity in a timely manner.
James Dipple-Johnstone, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO said: 鈥淲hen customers handed over their personal details, they expected Ticketmaster to look after them. But they did not.
鈥淭icketmaster should have done more to reduce the risk of a cyber-attack. It鈥檚 failure to do so meant that millions of people in the UK and Europe were exposed to potential fraud.
鈥淭he 拢1.25m fine we鈥檝e issued today will send a message to other organisations that looking after their customers鈥� personal details safely should be at the top of their agenda.鈥�
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.
The ICO鈥檚 investigation found that Ticketmaster鈥檚 decision to include the chat-bot, hosted by a third party, on its online payment page allowed an attacker access to customers鈥� financial details.
Although the breach began in February 2018, the penalty only relates to the breach from 25 May 2018, when new rules under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect.
The chat-bot was completely removed from Ticketmaster UK Limited鈥檚 website on 23 June 2018.
The breach occurred before the UK left the EU, therefore the ICO investigated on behalf of all EU authorities as lead supervisory authority under the GDPR. The penalty and action have been approved by the other EU DPAs through the GDPR鈥檚 cooperation process.