At Ticketmaster, a subsidiary of Live Nation and a leading ticket distribution and sales company, a fine of 10 million dollars was imposed for illegal access to the systems of rival company CrowdSurge – it used the credentials of one of the company's former employees.
“Ticketmaster employees repeatedly – and illegally – accessed a competitor’s computers without authorization using stolen passwords to gather illicit business information,” Deputy U.S. Attorney DuCharme said in a press release.
Stephen Mead, an employee of CrowdSurge before the company was acquired by SongKick and before being hired by Live Nation in 2013, and Zeeshan Zaidi, former head of Ticketmaster's artist services division, are two of the TicketMaster employees who participated in the scheme.
Mead shared some private CrowdSurge information despite signing an agreement not to disclose confidential company related to ticket sales made through the company to various companies.
Τα στελέχη της Ticketmaster τόνισαν ότι ο στόχος αυτής της επιχείρησης ήταν να “κλέψει” κάποιους πελάτες από την CrowdSurge.
Mead also provided Zaidi and other Ticketmaster executives with confidential financial documents in his possession relating to his period of employment with CrowdSurge.
The following year, in January 2015, Mead was promoted by Ticketmaster to Director of Customer Relations and received a raise after his transfer to the Artist Services department.
“Furthermore, Ticketmaster employees held a ‘summit’ in which the stolen passwords were used to access the victim company’s computers , as if it were an appropriate business tactic ,” DuCharme added.
“Today’s decision shows that any company that obtains a competitor’s confidential information for commercial advantage, without authority or permission, should expect to be held accountable in court.”
Mead and Zaidi were terminated
The company also admitted that it is responsible for the actions of its employees under United States.
“Ticketmaster fired both Zaidi and Mead in 2017, after the disclosure of the actions”, said a spokesperson for TicketMaster.
“Their actions violated our corporate policies and were incompatible with our values. We are satisfied that the issue has now been resolved.”
Information source: bleepingcomputer.com
