eBay Inc.'s StubHub online ticket resale service said it was the victim of a massive international cyber fraud ring, the details of which authorities plan to disclose on Wednesday as they announce arrests in the case.
Cyber thieves got into more than 1,000 StubHub customers' accounts and fraudulently bought tickets for events through the online ticket reseller, a law enforcement official and the company said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
StubHub's head of global communications, Glenn Lehrman, told Reuters late on Tuesday that his firm has been working with law enforcement around the world for the last year on the case.
Lehrman said he could not say how much money was involved or how many people were being charged ahead of announcements planned by authorities in several countries on Wednesday.
StubHub, which is based in San Francisco, said that the thieves got account-holders' login and password information from data breaches at other websites and retailers or from key-loggers or other malware on the customers' computers, Lehrman said.
“We did not have anyone who hacked into our system,” Lehrman said.
Yearlong investigation
The company detected the unauthorized transactions last year, contacted authorities and gave the affected customers refunds and help changing their passwords, he said.
It's unclear whether the digital prowlers then exploited their access to scoop up more information from the compromised accounts. The company and the law enforcement official wouldn't give further details Tuesday, according to the AP;.
Lehrman said the schemes involved a “pretty intense network of cyber fraudsters working in concert with each other.”
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance will announce details about the arrests along with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the City of London Police and the U.S. Secret Service, according to a release from Vance's office on Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for the District Attorney's office declined to elaborate.
The case comes amid growing concern about data thieves are targeting retailers and other consumer giants.
In the last year, major companies such as Target, LinkedIn, eBay and Neiman Marcus have been hacked.
Target, the nation's second-largest discounter, acknowledged in December that data connected to about 40 million credit and debit card accounts was stolen as part of a breach that began over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Even Goodwill Industries Inc. found itself announcing last month that shoppers' payment card data might have been stolen.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters and AP.
