Over 1,000 StubHub (NASDAQ:EBAY) customer accounts were hacked by cyber thieves, who fraudulently bought tickets on the website with stolen financial information. Announced Tuesday July 22, the case is currently being handled by law enforcement officials, but arrests have not yet been made, reports the Associated Press. The crime spans international borders, and StubHub’s head of global communications Glenn Lehrman says the company has been working with law enforcement all over the world to bring an “intense network of cyber fraudsters working in concert with each other” to justice, according to the BBC. The issue is planned to be addressed at a news conference Wednesday by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and London and Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
After detecting the fraud last year, StubHub contacted police and gave those affected customers refunds and password help, but the public had not been alerted of the issue until now. StubHub spokesman Lehrman claims that thieves didn’t break into its servers, but rather got customer information from hacks at other websites or malware on customers’ computers.
StubHub, a subsidiary of eBay , is the leading resale marketplace for all types of tickets, and pledges to give people a way “to buy or sell their tickets in a safe, convenient, and highly reliable environment.” It has not been revealed how much money was involved in these fraudulent purchases. It is not yet clear how much Stubhub’s sales will be affected by this hacking.
StubHub is not the only company to be recently affected by fraud. Target, LinkedIn, eBay, and Neiman Marcus have been hacked in the past year, among others. Because people often use the same usernames and passwords on multiple sites, thieves can get into a customer’s account without directly hacking a site. It is advised to use different passwords on different sites, and to use credit card monitoring services to determine any unauthorized charges.
Sources: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Cyber-Thieves-StubHub-Hackers-Manhattan-NYC-268219342.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28440296
