MGM Resorts Suffers Cybersecurity Attack, IT Outages Reported
MGM Resorts Attacked, System Outage Caused
Published on: September 11th, 2023 at 7:08 in the morning.
As of 10:57am on September 11, 2023, this blog post is current.
A representative from the casino company MGM Resorts International has disclosed that they were the victim of a cyber attack on their digital systems. This incidence was confirmed to the news outlet Casino.org, and took place at their headquarters located in Las Vegas.
On Monday, Brian Ahern, who is the executive director of communications at MGM, made an announcement revealing that the casino company has been targeted by an attack of unknown origin. Due to the cyber incident, the staff members of the company are unable to access their usual company email; therefore, Ahern shared the statement via a Gmail account.
MGM Resorts has uncovered a problem with their cybersecurity that has impacted certain systems within the organization. As soon as the issue was discovered, the Company started an investigation with the help of well-regarded external cybersecurity professionals," according to their official statement.
We also informed the authorities and took swift measures to safeguard our technology and information, such as shutting down specific systems. We are currently conducting an investigation, and we're exerting our best efforts to identify the incident's extent and specifics," the statement stated.
At present, it is ambiguous whether the cyberattack includes a demand for payment or not, and whether the culprits are communicating with authorities at MGM.
The biggest entity that offers jobs in Nevada is MGM, and they are in charge of running the highest number of casinos on the famous Las Vegas Strip.
As the problem with cybersecurity has been recently identified, we don't know the details of the attack yet. However, earlier today, people started sharing on social media about problems with the technical aspects of the company.
Numerous clients with MGM Rewards memberships have provided images of notifications indicating that the corresponding mobile applications are currently unavailable. One statement stated, "MGM Rewards is currently being serviced, and electronic keys are not available at this time. Kindly visit the reception desk for help."
According to individuals who frequent social media platforms, MGM's Las Vegas casinos appear to be experiencing issues. It has been alleged that a digital occurrence has caused cash registers, ATMs, and machines used for ticket transactions to cease functioning.
The cyber attack is having an effect on every one of the operations run by MGM in Las Vegas. When you visit the company's website, you will see that you cannot currently make any reservations online.
It seems that MGM's local casinos are also impacted by the power outage. Various casino websites such as MGM National Harbor, Borgata in Atlantic City, MGM Grand Detroit, MGM Springfield located in Massachusetts, Beau Rivage in Mississippi, Empire City Casino in NYC, and MGM Northfield Park in Ohio are all offline.
MGM belongs to a group of six organizations that run casinos for profit in Macau. This is the only region within China's jurisdiction where casinos are permitted. At present, it seems that the breach in cybersecurity that occurred in the United States has not affected MGM's casinos in Macau. This was confirmed as of Monday early afternoon.
MGM possesses MGM Macau and MGM Cotai, which are operated by its subsidiary MGM China Holdings.
MGM Resorts encountered a significant cybersecurity breach back in 2019. Sadly, personal data belonging to 30 million guests was exposed to the public via Telegram, an instant messaging platform. The data attack originated from a Russian hacking group, as MGM Resorts later confirmed at the beginning of 2020.
Even though the hackers took people's names, phone numbers, and dates of birth, they did not get access to important and private details such as financial data, credit card information, debit card information, or passwords.
