a persistent error message Dulce Martinez greeted her on Monday as she tried to access her casino rewards account to book accommodations for an upcoming business trip.
That’s weird, she thought, then turned to Facebook to look for clues about the problem in the MGM Resorts International loyalty members group. There, she learned that the owner of Las Vegas’ largest casino had fallen victim to a cybersecurity breach.
Martinez, 45, immediately checked her bank statements for the credit card linked to her loyalty account. Now, she’s received four new transactions that she doesn’t recognize – and each one, she says, will increase the fee, from $9.99 to $46. She canceled her credit card.
Martinez, a publicist from Los Angeles, was disturbed by what other information the hackers might have stolen, and she said she signed up for a credit report monitoring program that would cost $20 a month.
“It’s been a problem for me,” she said, “but I’m monitoring my credit now and I’m taking these extra steps now.”
MGM Resorts said the incident began Sunday and affected reservations and casino floors in Las Vegas and other states. Videos on social media show the video slot machine has been hacked. Some customers said their hotel key cards were not working. Others said they were canceling travel this weekend.
The situation entered its sixth day on Friday, with booking capacity still down, and MGM Resorts offering free room cancellations until September 17. Company spokesman Brian Ahern declined Friday to answer questions from The Associated Press about what information had been removed. be harmed in a breach.
By Thursday, Caesars Entertainment, the world’s largest casino owner, had confirmed as much. Suffering a cyber security attack. The casino giant said computer operations at its casinos and hotels had not been disrupted but could not say with certainty that the personal information of tens of millions of customers was safe following the data breach.
security attack sparks FBI investigation Breaking the public perception that casino security requires an “Ocean’s 11” level of effort to defeat.
“When people think of security, they think of really big supercomputers, firewalls and a lot of security systems,” said Yoohwan Kim, a computer science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, whose expertise includes cybersecurity.
Indeed, King said, casino giants like MGM Resorts and Caesars are protected by complex and expensive security operations. But no system is perfect.
“Hackers are always fighting for that 0.0001 percent of vulnerability,” Kim said. “Often, this weakness is human-related, such as phishing.”
Tony Anscombe, chief security officer at San Diego-based cybersecurity firm ESET, said the intrusions appeared to be “social engineering attacks,” meaning the hackers used tactics such as phone calls, text messages or phishing emails. . to damage the system.
“Security is only as strong as its weakest link, and unfortunately, as with many cyberattacks, human behavior is how cybercriminals gain access to a company’s crown jewels,” Anscombe said.
As security breaches left some Las Vegas casino floors deserted this week, a hacking group emerged online claiming responsibility for an attack on Caesars Entertainment Systems and said it had demanded a $30 million ransom from the company.
It has not yet been officially determined whether the affected companies paid the ransom to regain control of their data. But experts say if someone did that, more attacks could happen.
“If this happens at MGM, the same thing could happen at other hotels,” said King, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “More attacks are bound to happen. That’s why they have to be prepared.”
Svlook
