Peter Zimonjic

Canada's privacy commissioner&nbsp;has launched an investigation into a cybersecurity breach at Ticketmaster after an attack&nbsp;by a&nbsp;hacker group&nbsp;compromised the personal information of millions of customers around the world.&nbsp;

"The investigation will allow us to understand why this cyber incident happened and what must be done to address this situation and prevent it from happening again," Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne said in a statement Wednesday.&nbsp;

The ticket-selling company wrote in an email to customers in early July that it discovered an "unauthorized third party" had obtained information from a cloud database hosted by a third-party company between April 2 and May 18 of&nbsp;this year.&nbsp;

Use any tools offered to monitor credit following Ticketmaster data breach, says expert

Consumers who have fallen victim to corporate data breaches should stay vigilant about monitoring their personal accounts and financial information, but may not need to completely cancel or close affected accounts, according to a lawyer and data breach expert practising in Canada.

Ticketmaster is warning customers of a "data security incident" that may have leaked personal information.

Ticketmaster tickets

Ticketmaster customers potentially affected by a data breach may not need to cancel everything — but should watch their accounts carefully, says a cyber security expert.

Ticketmaster says customers' credit card information affected by data breach

Ticketmaster is notifying customers about a “data security incident” that may have leaked their personal information.

Ticketmaster is warning customers of a 'data security incident' that may have leaked their personal information.

The privacy commissioner's office said&nbsp;Ticketmaster holds the personal information of millions of Canadians.

The&nbsp;investigation&nbsp;will examine the company's security safeguards and whether it complied with breach notification requirements, the office said. It will also probe whether Ticketmaster was in compliance with the&nbsp;Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

Earlier this month Ticketmaster told customers by email that the breach "may have included [their] name, basic contact information, and payment card information such as encrypted credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates."

Google to offer dark web monitoring for free. But your data is possibly already there — and vulnerable

Your personal data, whether it’s passwords, credit card numbers and other online account information, is quite possibly available on the dark web, just waiting to be exploited — if it hasn’t been already.

A composite image of a smartphone with a an icon on a black screen. The icon is a white square, with rounded edges, and the letter G in red, yellow, green and blue. Behind the phone is a dark computer monitor with multicolour text and code on the screen.

Google says it will make its dark web monitoring tool widely available for free later this month, so users can scan to see if hackers have exposed their email address and other personal information. 

Google Dark Web Monitoring Composite 2

News of the breach came after a hacking group called ShinyHunters claimed it had stolen the user data of more than 500 million Ticketmaster customers and demanded a ransom of $500,000 US ($680,000 Cdn), according to media reports.&nbsp;

Ticketmaster says it first identified the breach on May 20.

Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne has launched an investigation into a cybersecurity breach at Ticketmaster in April and May. The commissioner says the firm holds the personal data of millions of Canadians. 

Privacy commissioner launches investigation into Ticketmaster data breach

$500,000 US ransom

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