Overview
- Wired reported Thursday that documents published by the hacker group ShinyHunters include a “talent” file of about 39,539 public figures with roughly 400 people given tiered risk scores and 93 entries labeled “LGBTQIA.”
- The database used short categorical risk tiers such as “flag,” “low risk,” “medium risk,” “high risk,” “DO NOT HOST,” and “BANNED FROM MSG,” and security notes appear to draw on social media and past criticism of MSG leadership.
- The files were part of a trove ShinyHunters threatened to release after a June 12 ransom demand and then published days later, and several class-action lawsuits have been filed in response to the leak.
- The reporting builds on earlier Wired reporting that MSG security used facial-recognition and minute-by-minute tracking of a transgender fan, raising concerns about how the venue collected and used sensitive data.
- The leak also reportedly exposed a larger Salesforce customer trove with about 10.5 million email records, creating broad privacy risk for ordinary ticket buyers and increasing the chance of regulatory, legal, and reputational consequences for MSG.