Caesars reportedly paid millions to stop hackers releasing its data | It’s the second Las Vegas casino group to be attacked this week.::Caesars Entertainment reportedly paid “tens of millions of dollars” to hackers who threatened to release company data.
I work in the casino industry, our databases are full of ssns, addresses, emails, telephone numbers, birthdates, food/liquor/tobacco/vacation/entertainment preferences, players with lines of credit through us, people cash checks or get cash advances through their credit cards through us so we have that info, through our play history data you can infer habits of where someone is or isn’t at certain times, some casino companies are now offering “cashless/chip less” play which is an app on your phone hooked up to a bank account we set up for you and tie to Experian, etc etc etc
Casinos are essentially banks now, we have fuckloads of secure information and the casino industry hires the cheapest fucktards it can find on purpose to keep profits high. It’s no wonder we’re being targeted, we’re damn juicy targets. Even if IT tries our hardest, we’re handcuffed by cheap management and flat stupid users that fail phishing tests left and right and write down passwords on notepads or excel sheets
So it is because you guys invaded people’s privacy by having data you don’t even need to operate?
Sounds like a sad excuse.
Much of that we do need to satisfy our regulatory requirements or offer products/services to players. You don’t get to be a big casino company by throwing a bunch of standalone slot machines in a building and having no reward/points program.
Sadly this will probably not change unless attacks become so frequent that paying the ransom is more expensive than hiring competent people and teaching them proper opsec.
It’s bound to happen at some point, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Sadly we’ll never be able to reach proper IPsec to all staff, Kyle in marketing is ALWAYS going to fuck it up because he thinks he’s a big shot who makes great business moves by buying cheap casserole dishes to give to players as gifts. That numbnuts is going to click the obvious scam link every time thinking he just found a new deal
Thanks for that Insight, the last time i was in Vegas was about twenty years ago and i honestly had no Idea why a slot machine has to be online.
We can’t offer player points (that can be used on free play or free food or free hotel stays) without them being online and tracking the level of play on your card
User being phished doesn’t leak the company’s database though.
I think “user” in this case means “employee”. Phishing is by far the most common point of entry.
It does if that user has rights to access those databases, that would be a non-zero number of marketing analysis, p&a, data scientists, IT staff who maintain that infrastructure, etc. The most dangerous one is a compromised IT admin account and from the looks of it that happened to MGM this week