Jody Chiang ticketing process hit by 40 million hack attacks

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Jody Chiang ticketing process hit by 40 million hack attacks

CNA
2015-01-28

Acer's ticket booking website for Judy Chiang's concerts, Jan. 25. (Photo/Wang Yuan-mao)

Taiwanese PC maker Acer, whose cloud computing unit handled the online ticketing for nine Jody Chiang concerts, said Tuesday that its system absorbed nearly 40 million hack attacks during the registration and sales process.

Some of the attacks were launched from foreign locations, and the company will provide the data to the Investigation Bureau under Taiwan's Ministry of Justice for further investigation, Acer chairman George Huang said at a press briefing.

He declined to divulge the domestic or foreign sources of the hack attacks, saying only that Acer had successfully blocked all of them since they started when registration on the ticketing website opened on Jan. 19.

There were nearly 310,000 registered members who logged on to the ticketing website simultaneously when the sale began at noon Sunday, occupying less than half of the connection capacity prepared by Acer, Huang said.

All 90,000 tickets available were sold out within 30 minutes.

It was a big challenge for Acer's cloud system to handle the huge data traffic during a short period of time, Huang said, but the company achieved its four objectives: smooth operations of the cloud platform, high-grade information security, a fair sales process and tickets selling out as soon as possible.

Over 340,000 people registered to purchase the tickets on the website www.jody-ticket.com.tw and each person was allowed to buy up to four tickets, indicating that only about 10% of those registering to buy tickets had their requests satisfied, Acer said.

Chiang, one of the biggest names on the Taiwanese-language music scene, announced on Jan. 2 that she was ending her singing career this year with 16 farewell concerts.

Her announcement set off a rush for concert tickets, overwhelming the official ticketing site and ticketing machines at convenience stores around Taiwan during a three-day sale that sparked anger and frustration among potential ticket buyers.

To cater to upset fans who failed to secure tickets after long hours of waiting, Chiang announced on Jan. 16 that she would hold nine additional concerts at Taipei Arena and Kaohsiung Arena in August and September, respectively.