That data breach at Ticketmaster may only be the beginning and here’s who might be in danger:
The half-billion consumers whose personal data was possibly compromised by the recent data breach at Ticketmaster and the other 30 million consumer finance company Santander Consumer USA were more than enough to raise concerns.
But there could be additional threats – and according to Wired and others – the Ticketmaster breach may just be the tip of the iceberg, thanks to where it and other large companies’ customer databases reside.
The widespread belief is that the Ticketmaster and Santander breaches are linked to attacks against cloud provider Snowflake. That might be ok if Snowflake only had Ticketmaster and Santander data to take care of, but it also reportedly holds many other large consumer brands and if the company is attacked again, all heck could break loose.
Snowflake has denied that its systems were directly breached. The company contends that the data theft resulted from attackers using compromised customer credentials.
Basically, Snowflake blames its data theft on poorly secured customer accounts – such as accounts without two-factor authentication (2FA) – a defense that mirrors what 23andMe used in its recent data breach.
Do you have an account with any of these other companies?
Ticketmaster and Santander customers are probably already scurrying to delete credit card numbers and change passwords, but those are only two of the major brands that Snowflake does business with.
It’s quite possible that this could be a one- or two-time hit, but in addition to resetting credentials at Ticketmaster and Santander, any consumer who does business with any of the following Snowflake-related companies might want to take added precautions to secure their personal information:
Neiman Marcus
JetBlue
Adobe
AT&T
Capital One
Anheuser-Busch
State Farm
Mitsubishi
Progressive
Allstate
Advance Auto
DoorDash
HP
Mastercard
Micron
NBC Universal
Nielsen
PepsiCo
Siemens
Western Union
Yamaha
Hundreds of data compromises
This list is just the heavy hitters, but given the fact that in the first quarter of 2024, there were more than 800 data compromises, this situation should be a reminder to everyone that no one is safe.
If Snowflake says that 2FA would’ve prevented its customers from taking a hit, then, by all means, make two-factor authentication part of your security set-up.
But, also – as this reporter has found out – setting your bank and charge account notification settings extremely low (like $1) to catch any misuse of your account credentials could save the day. In today’s world “better safe than sorry” is a motto that has never been more accurate.
UPDATE: Snowflake offers recommendations
"On June 2, Snowflake indicated a recent increase in cyber threat activity targeting customer accounts on its cloud data platform," CISA -- the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency -- said in an update of the situation.
"Snowflake issued a recommendation for users to query for unusual activity and conduct further analysis to prevent unauthorized user access. Users and administrators are encouraged to hunt for any malicious activity, report positive findings to CISA, and review the following Snowflake notice for additional information: Detecting and Preventing Unauthorized User Access: Instructions."