Ticketmaster

Profile narrative

Stephen Mead, also known under the alias Ticketmaster, is an individual identified as a former employee of CrowdSurge who later worked for Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation in the United States. He is referenced in open source reporting as having used his prior knowledge of CrowdSurge systems to assist Ticketmaster in gaining unauthorized access to a competitor’s networks. The alias Ticketmaster appears in the context of his employment rather than as a separate moniker for a group. Public records locate his activities within the United States of America. No additional aliases or affiliations with state actors or criminal syndicates are documented in the source material.

The targeting described in the reporting is limited to a single competitor in the online ticketing industry, specifically CrowdSurge. The strategic objective articulated by those involved was to obtain a commercial advantage by stealing back signature clients and weakening the rival’s market position. This objective was expressed in internal communications as an intent to “choke off” the victim company and to “cut [the victim] off at the knees.” The tactics employed relied on the use of stolen credentials from a former CrowdSurge employee to log into the competitor’s computers without authorization. Additional steps included maintaining a spreadsheet that catalogued the victim company’s ticketing web pages, sharing confidential URLs and financial documents, and holding division‑wide meetings where the compromised access was exploited.

The operation came to light after an investigation led to charges against Ticketmaster for conspiracy, computer intrusion, and wire fraud related to the unauthorized access. Court documents show that Stephen Mead provided confidential CrowdSurge information to Ticketmaster executives, including Zeeshan Zaidi, and later received a promotion within the company. Ticketmaster ultimately admitted responsibility for the actions of its employees under United States law and was fined ten million dollars. As part of the resolution, the company was required to implement compliance and ethics programs to prevent future violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Both Stephen Mead and Zeeshan Zaidi were terminated by Ticketmaster in 2017 after their conduct was discovered.

Incidents

Attributed incidents are available to members.