a Recent report by Wall Street Journal Provides an inside look at the events surrounding the September cybersecurity breaches that affected… MGM Casino resorts across the country.
The entire incident appears to have started after a hacker contacted the company’s technical support team, pretending to be an employee, to request a password change. This set off a chain of events that left the company’s computer systems down and ended up costing them MGM An estimated $100 million.
“A few minutes later, for real MGM The report indicated that the employee received a notification that his password had been reset and reported it to the IT department. “By then it was too late. The hackers were there.”
Very threatening with sometimes violent tendencies
A small group of hackers is behind MGM The events call themselves Star Fraud and are derived from an online community called “The Com”. The group has become “one of the most significant cybersecurity problems facing the United States,” according to the report.
Along with cryptocurrency thefts, the group is also involved in sextortion schemes targeting teens, and Apple and Meta breaches after posing as the character. FBI clients, and even stolen source code for an unreleased Grand Theft Auto video game, all while extorting millions of dollars from other companies.
The group, believed to be made up of hackers from the US, Canada and the UK, has shown a willingness to resort to violence at times.
“They hired criminals to throw Molotov cocktails or even shoot up competitors’ homes,” the newspaper reported.
Access
While several companies, including Caesars Entertainment, have paid ransoms to regain access to their computer systems, MGM did not. as in MGM In this case, Star Fraud targets technical support teams to gain access to a company’s computer systems. The group initially gained access to information about a company employee by “mining massive amounts of stolen and illegally available data on the Internet.”
Hackers used text messages to threaten employees with violence to gain access to their credentials. One text message sent to a company employee who fell victim to the group said, “If we can’t log in in the next 20 minutes, we will send a shooter to your house. Your wife will get shot if you don’t.”
In two days, MGM It had to shut down many of its systems, unable to make online reservations, pay for slot machines, or process many transactions. The hackers demanded a ransom of $30 million, but the company refused to pay. After days of shutting down and reformatting servers across the company, MGM Eventually operations were restored and running smoothly. Despite the adversity, CEO Bill Hornbuckle has no regrets about how the company responded.
“They did not get what they were looking for,” he added.
MGM It’s not the only gaming company to face hacking attempts recently. Canadian company Gateway Casinos and Entertainment saw several properties shut down last year after a hacking attempt, and a property in Arizona recently faced a similar issue.
