‘1 million’ Coachella festival-goers hacked

Personal details of around one million Coachella attendees have been leaked, promoters of the US music festival have confirmed.

While personal details were stolen, financial information is safe, Coachella said.

Motherboard reported that information of some festival-goers was available for sale on the dark web for $300.

Coachella said the stolen data comprises attendees’ first names and surnames, usernames, postal and email addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.

But the data was stolen from the main Coachella website, not the festival’s ticketing site, meaning credit card details were not compromised.

Coachella promoters Goldenvoice said in a statement reported by IQ magazine that it has taken measures to “block further unauthorised access and reported the matter to the appropriate authorities for further investigation”.

Commenting on the lost data, Chris Boyd, malware intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes, said: "[The breach] opens the door to very personalised phishing attempts. Smooth criminals will no doubt fire off some fake refund/special festival deals at people who may not know about [it]."

"The good news is, no payment information was compromised - but by the same token, cards can be cancelled and replaced. It's a bit trickier to replace the information [that was] swiped ... to varying degrees of difficulty and/or time-wasting inconvenience."

(Image: Pixabay)