While online ticketing systems bring convenience for both sellers and buyers and help boost ticket sales, these benefits come with the risk of cyberattacks and online scams.
And unfortunately, these attacks are on the rise. In 2022 alone, the average cost of a data breach was $4.35 million, a 2.6% increase from 2021.
As the ticketing platform you choose will be your virtual ticket booth and represent you to your customers, you can’t have one with security loopholes that scammers can exploit. That’ll ruin your reputation and the brand image you’ve worked years to build.
In this article, we’ll set the security and privacy standards by discussing features you should look for in an online ticketing platform.
We’ll also share the three best online ticketing platforms that meet those high-security standards so your brand reputation doesn’t take a dent.
As an event organizer, you can’t afford to be a part of a headline like the following:
To avoid situations like this one, you need to choose a ticketing platform that takes a proactive approach to dodge such cyberattacks.
There’s no point in taking a reactive approach, firefighting the bad media your brand will get, and releasing an apologetic statement after your reputation has been tarnished.
Set your event business up in the most secure way so no incident management is ever needed. It’s important to note; we can never be 100% sure that all data is secure, as the internet is a complex system and hackers are always finding new ways to infiltrate secure data. But you can definitely give your business the best chance of being as secure as you can make it.
Here are some security and privacy features that are a must in an online ticketing platform you choose:
There’s a reason why event ticketing platforms in the European Union (EU) need to follow GDPR guidelines. They must get users’ consent before collecting and processing their sensitive data. These regulations force platforms to protect user privacy and abide by legal requirements.
A platform following such guidelines has to keep user data confidential, protect it from unauthorized access, and process it according to the law. This helps increase the buyers’ confidence and trust in your brand.
Make sure that the ticketing platform you choose has advanced encryption algorithms in place. So when your buyer purchases a ticket from that platform, their payment information is encrypted using that algorithm and then stored in their database.
That way, someone who’s not supposed to access it can’t get a hold of this information, significantly reducing the risk of data breaches and financial scams.
Ensuring that the online ticketing platform’s payment processing is safe will not only save your reputation but also boost your ticket sales.
Payment security is a major concern for online buyers in general. No one will buy a ticket from an online platform if they can’t trust it with their credit card information.
In fact, 18% of buyers abandon a purchase if they feel like they can’t trust a site with their sensitive information.
Here are some ways to be sure that your chosen platform’s payment processing is secure.
The ticketing platform you choose should follow the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). To be PCI DSS compliant, they must fulfill 12 requirements organized into six control objectives:
Event ticketing software that adheres to PCI DSS compliance offers robust protection for payment transactions, mitigating the chances of data breaches and unauthorized access to sensitive cardholder information.
For secure handling of payment data, the online ticketing platform must integrate with trusted and reputable payment gateways. These gateways serve as intermediaries between the ticketing platform and financial institutions, bringing security features with them.
By leveraging these trusted gateways, the platform will ensure secure payment transactions and protects sensitive payment data during transmission and storage.
The event ticketing platform you choose must prioritize the security of transactions by utilizing SSL/TLS protocols to encrypt payment details, including credit card information.
This ensures the secure transmission of sensitive data to the payment gateway for processing.
With these encryption technologies in place, unauthorized interception and tampering are effectively prevented, maintaining a trustworthy and secure transaction process.
If you browse the internet regularly and use social media, you might have been asked to turn on two-factor authentication. Usually, a code is sent to your registered mobile number, and upon entering that code, you are granted access to your account.
This is an example of user authentication measures that ensures that the account owner is the only person that gets access to it. These measures verify your identity before letting you in and restrict anyone else from gaining access to your sensitive information.
And that’s what the ticketing platform you choose should be doing. Here are some more examples of such measures:
In event ticketing software, passwords should undergo encryption, which involves converting them into unreadable text through advanced algorithms. This security measure shields user passwords from being exposed during a data breach.
Also, at the time of account creation, the platform should require a strong password before letting you or your ticket buyers sign up. That way, no one would be able to guess it on a couple of tries.
You’d be surprised how many people like to set their names, birthdays, birthplace, etc., as passwords, which are pretty easy to guess by persistent scammers.
Single Sign-On (SSO) streamlines user access across multiple systems or platforms with a single set of login credentials. With SSO, users who have already authenticated themselves on a trusted platform can seamlessly access the event ticketing software without the need to re-enter their credentials.
This protects them against threats like key-loggers maliciously installed on their devices and removes the obstacle of logging in multiple times from the user experience, making it seamless.
But the ticketing platform should keep a balance with features like this one, as hackers can replicate the sessions. So, if a person signs in from a different location than usual, it should automatically log them out.
Incorporating fraud prevention measures is of utmost importance in event ticketing platforms. Here are the key points and their significance for security:
Implementing these measures ensures that the online ticketing platform remains vigilant against fraudulent activities, protecting both the ticketing platform and its users from scams and unauthorized practices.
Determining who can access resources and what actions they can perform matters. It is crucial for security and involves granting specific privileges to authorized users while restricting access to unauthorized ones.
The ticketing platform you choose should be implementing this and giving its users different levels of access based on their needs and restricting access to information and resources like customer payment information and personal data.
Here are some key areas the platform should cover:
User permission settings offer meticulous control over user access, allowing only authorized individuals to perform specific actions and access sensitive information within the ticketing software.
The online ticketing platform must establish a security framework by implementing fine-grained access controls, ensuring that users are granted appropriate privileges based on their authorization levels.
This approach enhances data protection and safeguards the integrity of the ticketing system.
The ticketing platform must enhance security by monitoring and logging user actions, enabling the detection of suspicious or unauthorized activities and tracing them back to the responsible users.
Audit logs and activity tracking are vital in forensic investigations, compliance audits, and identifying potential security breaches. They provide valuable information for incident analysis and risk mitigation.
For instance, during a security breach, audit logs are instrumental in tracking user activities, providing critical evidence for investigation, and identifying loopholes.
To keep sensitive customer information secure during ticket information transmission, the platform should employ the following technologies:
Event ticketing software should use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) encryption to protect user data during browsing sessions, including credentials and sensitive information. Encryption protects against interception and unauthorized access.
For API integrations, encryption should be employed to secure data transmission between the ticketing software and external systems. This ensures data confidentiality, integrity and prevents breaches.
The online ticketing platform should incorporate secure email protocols, including SMTP over TLS (Transport Layer Security), to maintain confidentiality and protect sensitive information. This encryption ensures that email notifications sent to users are securely encrypted during transmission.
The software safeguards confidential data by implementing secure email notifications, including ticket purchase confirmations and account-related notifications.
Incorporating encryption for messaging features is crucial in event ticketing software. The platform establishes secure communication channels between users, such as event organizers and attendees, by offering encrypted messaging capabilities.
How it works: a secure connection is established when a user logs into the event ticketing platform, indicated by the URL starting with “https://” instead of “http://.”
This signifies that data transmission, including login credentials and payment information, is encrypted to prevent unauthorized access. Through these measures, the software prioritizes user data protection, upholds confidentiality, and maintains the integrity of communication channels.
Backup means creating a copy of your files by periodically taking snapshots. These data snapshots could be taken hours or days apart.
Having a comprehensive backup solution allows ticketing platforms to restore something important, like a lost customer email list or something as small as an accidentally deleted file from three years ago.
Disaster recovery means quickly reestablishing access to data, applications, and IT resources after an outage. The platform you work with might have a disaster recovery plan that may involve switching over to a redundant set of servers and storage systems until their primary data center is functional again, for example.
An important consideration for all recovery solutions isn’t just the depth and completeness of backup but the speed at which they can restore your data. Every minute your servers are down means money is being lost. You can’t have servers down at such a crucial stage of your customer’s journey (buying tickets), can you?
Separately, backup and disaster recovery are not enough to keep your data safe, but together, they are essential for data protection.
A well-implemented disaster recovery solution means you’ll be able to do your business as usual, maintain continuity and avoid downtime.
Service interruptions can also create compliance hurdles. Legal issues may arise from data loss or downtime, so mitigating this risk is worth the time and effort needed to implement a robust disaster recovery solution.
Now that you have a clear idea of what security features you should expect from an online ticketing platform, here’s a comparison between the industry’s best players:
Despite being a free service, TicketsCandy is one of the top online ticketing platforms with outstanding features. And it takes its security and privacy features more seriously than anyone else in the industry.
It has every security feature mentioned in this article, including PCI compliance, messaging, website, and API encryption. TicketsCandy also has periodic backups, a disaster recovery system in place, and Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), making it a top contender.
Plus, it uses Square as a payment gateway, one of the safest processors for hardware and POS software. TicketsCandy uses advanced algorithms to encrypt passwords, payment information, and other sensitive data before storing it on its server.
That means there’s little to no chance of a data breach, and your reputation will be safe working with them.
Eventbrite is a well-established player in the online ticketing industry, and its customers have high expectations from them, especially regarding security and privacy. And they are doing decent enough to meet those expectations.
While their security page hasn’t disclosed anything about features like DDoS Mitigation, Access Control, Fraud Detection, and Disaster Recovery & Backup, they do have secure payment gateways. They are SOC and PCI compliant, which means they care about their customers’ security.
Also, they use strong encryption methods and key management procedures to secure their customers’ personal information, making them earn the 2nd spot on this list.
TicketSpice is another popular online ticketing platform with great security and privacy features that rival the best in the industry.
It boasts features like PCI compliance, API encryption, backups, disaster recovery systems, etc.
But at the same time, their security page goes silent about other important features, like DDoS Mitigation and Access Control.
DDoS mitigation keeps the platform from going down during a malicious attack, and access control defines roles for its users and gives them access to resources and sensitive information based on that.
So both of these features shouldn’t be skimped on. Other than that, it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with its competitors.
An online ticketing platform’s security and privacy features shouldn’t be considered optional—they are a must.
They have your reputation in their hands, and if they stumble at such a crucial stage of your buyer’s journey, especially with online security, it’ll be crushed to pieces. But by working with a secure platform, you’ll ensure that your buyers have more confidence in your brand and won’t think twice before buying your tickets.
Need help boosting your ticket sales with peace of mind? Sign up with TicketsCandy—the most secure online ticketing platform—to help you gain your customer’s trust and confidence.
What are some key security features that an online ticketing platform should have?
Key security features that an online ticketing platform should have include PCI Compliance, DDoS Mitigation, Access Control, Fraud Detection, secure communication channels, encryption for website & API communication, secure email notifications, encrypted messaging features, as well as a robust disaster recovery and backup system.
Why is encryption important for an online ticketing platform?
Encryption is vital to protect sensitive user data during browsing sessions and to secure data transmission between the ticketing software and external systems. It prevents unauthorized access and maintains the confidentiality and integrity of the data.
What does it mean when a URL starts with “https://” instead of “http://” on a ticketing platform?
A URL starting with “https://” indicates a secure connection, meaning that the transmission of data, including login credentials and payment information, is encrypted to prevent unauthorized access.
What is the significance of backup and disaster recovery for an online ticketing platform?
Backup and disaster recovery are crucial for data protection. A comprehensive backup solution allows platforms to restore important data, while a robust disaster recovery plan ensures the quick reestablishment of access to data, applications, and IT resources after an outage.
Who are the top 3 online ticketing platforms with the best security and privacy features?
According to the article, the top three online ticketing platforms with excellent security and privacy features are TicketsCandy, Eventbrite, and TicketSpice.
What makes TicketsCandy stand out among other ticketing platforms?
Despite being a free service, TicketsCandy ranks highly in security and privacy features. It comes with all the security features discussed above, including PCI compliance, website and API encryption, messaging, and Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). It also uses Square as a payment gateway and employs advanced algorithms to encrypt passwords, payment information, and other sensitive data.
Why are security and privacy features crucial for an online ticketing platform?
Security and privacy features are critical for an online ticketing platform as they hold your reputation in their hands. A security breach could cause severe damage, impacting buyer confidence and leading to potential loss of sales. A secure platform ensures that buyers do not hesitate to purchase your tickets.
How can a secure online ticketing platform like TicketsCandy help boost ticket sales?
A secure platform like TicketsCandy can help boost ticket sales by earning the customer’s trust and confidence. When users know that their data is secure, they are more likely to make a purchase and even become repeat customers.
