CTS Eventim calls in police after Taylor Swift hack in Germany

A police investigation has commenced in Germany after CTS Eventim users were targeted by hackers who stole and then attempted to resell Taylor Swift tickets.

Eventim was able to identify and reverse all unauthorised resales and return funds to those who had bought the stolen tickets. The operator, which is ticketing all seven of Swift’s German concerts, said the number of unauthorised resales was in the low double-digit range.

Eventim ruled out hackers accessing passwords from its own sources as it does not store them internally. It said it is therefore likely that the hackers used data garnered from the darknet.

Eventim reset the passwords of accounts at risk and told those who believe they may have been targeted to contact customer services. The resale of Taylor Swift tickets — only available by Eventim’s platform — was temporarily stopped.

Eventim extends multifactor authentication

The operator brought in the police and said it is extending multifactor authentication to boost customer data security.

“Thanks to our high security standards and the exclusive use of digital tickets, we were able to quickly detect the attempted attacks and largely stop them,” Eventim said in a statement. “We are also contacting our customers directly and providing information about creating secure passwords for making purchases online.

“At the same time, we are continuing to work on raising our already very high security standards. Multifactor authentication, which is already in use in some areas, will be rolled out further in future.”

The European leg of Swift’s Eras Tour is visiting the German cities of Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg and Munich in July. She will play to around 450,000 people at the seven gigs at Veltins-Arena, Volksparkstadion and Olympiastadion.