Late in February, Goldenvoice, the promoter of Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival made the announcement, telling account users that they might have been targeted by hackers through a certain email scam. After further investigation, the producer is now offering identity theft protection services to those who might be affected by the scam. A third-party accessed Coachella’s database, which contained the personal information of customers of the 2016 Coachella and Stagecoach festivals between September last year and February this year.
Cybercrime investigations
In a recent notice of data breach explaining the security incident, Goldenvoice said that criminal hackers attacked their website, leading to investigations concerning law enforcement and forensic IT experts. These hackers might have collected the following information from account users: first and last names, email addresses, mailing addresses, birth dates, phone numbers, usernames, and other additional details, such as drivers licenses, passport numbers, and other forms of identification.
Identity protection services
The promoter said, however, that their investigations indicated that the criminal hackers “did not have access to any payment or financial information, nor any of your passwords.” To remedy the damages, Goldenvoice is offering 12-month identity protection services from AllClear ID for free to individuals that are eligible.
The company warned account users that the criminals might still target them with emails asking for confidential or personal information. Festival-goers are further advised to change their passwords just to be sure.
950,000 user accounts sold
Back in February, Motherboard reported on the hack, after encountering a database of 950,000 user accounts being traded online by user handle Berkut on the Tochka dark web marketplace.
The data traders' listing included 360,000 accounts related to the Coachella website, and 590,000 accounts in connection to the message board. The entire data set, verified and checked by the online publication, was sold for a meager $300, which wouldn’t even get a single visitor a general admissions pass to the Coachella festival this April.
