Ticketcounter 2021 Data Breach
Events / E-Ticketing / Consumer / Netherlands
Ticketcounter 2021 Data Breach: 1.9 Million Records Exposed and Extorted
Dutch/European e-ticketing platform for attractions and events.
Confirmed · ObscureIQ Intelligence
Breach Risk Index i
40/100
Lower riskHigher risk
Moderate: notable exposure with meaningful misuse potential.
Data Sensitivity i
ElevatedExposed data raises the risk of fraud, targeting, and impersonation. Proactive steps are warranted.
1.9MRecords
2021Year
The Breach Risk Index (BRI) is a proprietary 0–100 score rating how dangerous a breach is right now, based on how recently the data has been circulating on the dark web and how valuable it is to attackers.
Crucial data exposed
FinancialBank Account Number
AddressPhysical address
Breach Summary
In August 2020, Ticketcounter inadvertently published a database backup to a publicly accessible location; it was found and downloaded in February 2021, exposing about 1.9 million unique email addresses along with names, physical and IP addresses, genders, dates of birth, payment histories and bank account numbers. The company was then extorted with threats to publish the data.
Full threat analysis, exploitation vectors, and principal guidance below.
10 additional sections · verified field analysis · defensive doctrine
Querying breach corpus…
Cross-referencing exposed field types…
Resolving threat-actor attribution…
Compiling principal risk advisory…
1.9M records analyzed
About Ticketcounter
Ticketcounter is a Netherlands-based e-ticketing platform selling admission for attractions, zoos, museums and events across Europe.
Why They Hold Your Data
An e-ticketing platform holds customer identity and contact data, physical and IP addresses, gender, dates of birth, payment histories and, for some, bank account numbers.
Recent Developments
Ticketcounter was extorted after the data surfaced; it notified customers and worked with Dutch authorities following the February 2021 discovery.
Data Points Exposed
9 verified field types
Bank Account Number Critical
Date of Birth High
Email Address
Full Name
Gender
IP Address
Phone Number
Physical address High
Transaction History
Breach Impact
The incident combined an accidental exposure with an extortion attempt, drawing Dutch data-protection scrutiny and customer-notification obligations.
Exploitation & Downstream Threats
• Financial fraud using exposed financial profile data | • Identity verification bypass using name + date of birth combination | • SIM swap attacks where phone numbers are present | • Targeted phishing campaigns using exposed email addresses | • Doxxing risk from physical address exposure
Principal Risk Advisory
What this means for a principal
A consumer-service breach: contact and account data supports phishing, account takeover and profile enrichment. For a high-profile principal this is targeting-grade, not merely identity-theft-grade: the combination lets an adversary locate, impersonate, or pressure the principal with little additional work.
What You Should Do
- Treat the home address as exposed: review mail and package handling and physical-security routines, and brief household staff to verify unusual requests.
- Guard against SIM-swap and vishing: add a carrier port-out PIN and verify any 'support' calls independently.
- Do not use unofficial 'am I affected' lookups; several are themselves harvesting operations.
How ObscureIQ Can Help
- Corpus confirmation: determine whether and where the principal (plus household and staff) appear in this dataset and which specific fields are exposed for them.
- Exposure mapping and footprint neutralization: cross-reference against broker-available data and suppress still-removable elements, prioritizing address and phone, since this record re-seeds broker networks.
- ThreatWatch tuned to this incident's identifiers and misuse pattern (impersonation and targeting patterns, not generic credential monitoring).
Protect Yourself
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