On Tuesday, StubHub, eBay's take on ticket sales, had to shut down its Brazil site due to a cyber attack on FIFA World Cup ticket sales.

According to Los Angeles Times, Brazil and FIFA have encouraged fans to buy their tickets from FIFA only. Still, StubHub has been a popular venue for individuals with tickets to sell online, usually for more than face value. Up until this week, there were plenty of options for those hoping to get a seat at the World Cup from the website. On Tuesday, this changed. StubHub spokesperson told the newspaper that there was a "huge DOS [denial-of-service] attack on the site from Brazil."

As a result, the website is investigating and made itself unavailable to Brazil surfers. Those who try to access the website from Brazil see an error message. As per StubHub's standard, however, World Cup tickets that have already been purchased remain valid.

"All World Cup tickets are fully guaranteed, just like any other ticket on our site," the StubHub spokesperson said. "We do quite a bit of cross-border trade from Brazil."

According to a government spokesperson, Brazil has not taken any punitive actions against neither eBay nor StubHub in Brazil. The country did, however, remind the company's Sports Ministry that tickets to the 2014 World Cup should only come from FIFA via its official website.

StubHub has yet to determine when visitors will be available to access its Brazil site again, but there is a lot of potential income in Brazilian patrons. The World Cup is expected to see 600,000 audience members from around the world, but its main ticket sales will come from native Brazilians. Los Angeles Times reports that 3 million soccer fans from Brazil are expected to come to the tournament, which will run in June and July, in their home country.

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @SH____4.

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