“Caesars Entertainment’s decision to pay the ransom highlighted a lack of confidence and investment in their cyber defenses,” Plaggemier said.Depending on your agenda, your hotel could be anything from the most important factor to an afterthought when booking a trip to Vegas. The risk, she said, is ”downtime and financial losses.” Lisa Plaggemier, executive director at the nonprofit National Cybersecurity Alliance, called MGM’s decision to shut down vulnerable systems to prevent intrusion a positive step but said it highlighted “significant” security gaps and an urgent need for substantial investment in employee training and cybersecurity.

But there’s a lot of technical evidence that shows that there’s a relationship between the two.” “You have Scattered Spider claiming that they’ve done both in various forums, and ALPHV, saying that Scattered Spider wasn’t involved with the other. “But there are a lot of conflicting reports,” said David Richardson, an executive at cybersecurity firm Lookout. The attack on MGM also has been attributed to Scattered Spider, a group of English-speakers also sometimes known as Øktapus operating under a Russia-based operation called ALPHV or BlackCat. Both companies are expected to disclose effects of the attacks in quarterly reports next month to the Securities and Exchange Commission. MGM shares were at $38.77, down 43 cents.

and abroad.Ĭaesars stock traded Wednesday at $50.17 per share, up 36 cents for the day. It also operates resorts in China and Macau.

MGM Resorts is the largest private employer in Nevada, operating tens of thousands of hotel rooms in Las Vegas at its flagship MGM Grand and properties including Bellagio, Aria, New York-New York and Mandalay Bay.

It also has mobile and online operations and sports betting. “There’s been attacks against multiple casinos, and it’s possible we’ll see more.”Ĭaesars Entertainment is the largest casino owner in the world, with more than 65 million rewards members and properties in 18 states and Canada under the Caesars, Harrah’s, Horseshoe and Eldorado brands. “At this point, all casinos should be moving to the highest defensive posture possible and taking active measures to verify the integrity of their systems and environment, and reviewing - if not activating - their incident response processes,” said Christopher Budd, a director of threat research at cybersecurity firm Sophos X-Ops. FBI spokeswoman Sandra Breault in Las Vegas declined to comment and referred to a previous statement by the agency saying an investigation was ongoing.Įxperts said the attacks exposed critical cybersecurity weaknesses at MGM and Caesars and shattered an image of casino invulnerability.

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