Data breaches → Ticketcounter
Was your data in the Ticketcounter breach?
2021 · ticketcounter.nl · ~1,921,722 accounts exposedCritical severity · 10/10
Ticketcounter (ticketcounter.nl) suffered a data breach in 2021 that exposed around 1,921,722 accounts. If you had an account, some of your personal data may be circulating in leaked databases. The fastest way to know is to check your own email — free, in about 30 seconds, no password required.
What happened
In August 2020, the Dutch ticketing service Ticketcounter inadvertently published a database backup to a publicly accessible location where it was then found and downloaded in February 2021. The data contained 1.9M unique email addresses which were offered for sale on a hacking forum and in some cases included names, physical and IP addresses, genders, dates of birth, payment histories and bank account numbers. Ticketcounter was later held to ransom with the threat of the breached being released publicly.
Breach details sourced from Have I Been Pwned, the industry-standard breach database. Risk analysis by Nullivo.
What was exposed, and why it matters
Not all breaches carry the same risk — what matters is which fields leaked. Here is what the Ticketcounter breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Direct financial fraud, plus convincing scam calls that quote your real card or account details to establish trust.
Home addresses feed people-search and data-broker sites, which republish them publicly. They also make phishing far more convincing and, in the worst cases, enable real-world harassment.
Date of birth is a permanent identifier used to verify identity by phone. Combined with a name and address it is often enough to impersonate you.
Enables SIM-swap attacks (hijacking your number to intercept SMS codes), smishing, and voice scams that appear to come from your bank.
Links this leak to your other accounts — a reused username lets anyone build a profile of you across platforms.
Puts you on spam and phishing lists, and confirms to attackers that you hold an account with this service — which makes impersonation emails more believable.
Reveals your approximate location and internet provider, which adds credibility to targeted scams.
Also listed in this breach: Bank account numbers, Dates of birth, Email addresses, Genders, IP addresses, Names, Payment histories, Phone numbers, Physical addresses.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Payment or bank details: Contact your bank, ask them to monitor or reissue the card, and check statements for small “test” transactions.
- Home addresses: Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating.
- Dates of birth: Never confirm your date of birth to an inbound caller — hang up and dial the organisation back on a published number.
- Phone numbers: Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider.
- Names and usernames: Search your usual username to see what else it exposes, and use distinct handles for sensitive accounts.
- Check whether your own email appears in this breach — run a free scan to confirm before you spend time on the steps above.
This breach put your details on data-broker sites
Because Ticketcounter exposed home addresses, this is one of the breaches that feeds people-search and data-broker sites. Those sites scrape leaked databases, combine them with public records, and republish the result as a searchable profile — which is how a single breach turns into a permanent public listing. Removal works, but brokers typically re-list within about four months, so it has to be repeated.
See our broker-by-broker removal guides →
How urgent is this now?
This data has been circulating for around 5 years, which means it has been copied, combined with other leaks and indexed by search tools many times over.
Remember: a breach can't be "un-leaked" — once a database is out, it exists in countless copies. The goal is to make the leaked data useless: change what can be changed, lock down what can't, and remove what has been republished.
Frequently asked questions
What data was exposed in the Ticketcounter breach?
The Ticketcounter breach exposed payment or bank details, home addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, names and usernames, email addresses, ip addresses. Direct financial fraud, plus convincing scam calls that quote your real card or account details to establish trust.
How many people were affected by the Ticketcounter breach?
Around 1,921,722 accounts were exposed, making it a large breach.
What should I do if I had a Ticketcounter account?
Contact your bank, ask them to monitor or reissue the card, and check statements for small “test” transactions. You can check whether your own email appears in this breach with a free Nullivo scan — no password required.
Breaches that exposed similar data
If the Ticketcounter breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Oxfam breach? (2021, ~1,834,006 accounts)
- Was your data in the Paidwork breach? (2026, ~23,272,765 accounts)
- Was your data in the La Poste Mobile breach? (2022, ~533,886 accounts)
- Was your data in the Fashion Nexus breach? (2018, ~1,279,263 accounts)
- Was your data in the Planet Ice breach? (2023, ~240,488 accounts)
- Was your data in the ClixSense breach? (2016, ~2,424,784 accounts)