Swifties’ password warning after hackers stole tickets

by Mikaela Mulveney Wed 14th February 2024
Interview with Professor Richard Buckland

Ticketek has urged ticketholders for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Australian tour to change or update their passwords after hackers infiltrated fans’ accounts and stole their tickets.

Cyber Security experts are calling for ticketing platforms to beef up their security after potentially hundreds of Taylor Swift fans had their tickets stolen days before the international superstar kicks off the local leg of the world tour.

Ticketek has told Swift fans to change their passwords to help safeguard tickets after admitting it was aware of “unauthorised access” to fans’ accounts by hackers.

Cyber Security expert Richard Buckland, a professor at the University of NSW, said concert tickets had become “extremely easy” to steal since the rollout of electronic sales platforms.

“With something like this where you just want to get a lot of people as quickly and cheaply as possible on the internet, (hackers) buy usernames and passwords off the internet and try them all,” Professor Buckland said.

If you have Taylor Swift tickets go to the Ticketek website and change your password now to be a secure, impossible-to-guess password that you have never used anywhere before.”

Professor Buckland said companies must have property security to protect their customers and it was a no-brainer for ticketing platforms to add two-factor authentication.