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MGM Grand in Las Vegas hit with Ransomware Attack
Wow.
A member of the criminal group used the identity of an MGM employee found easily on LinkedIn, called the MGM help desk and asked for a password change. The IT person working on the help desk happily complied, and the hacker went into business, leaving no chips on the table.
52 million dollars in lost revenues and counting, a cyber-attack on MGM Resorts International, a 14B Las Vegas gaming empire with Hollywood-famous hotel spreads like the Bellagio, Cosmopolitan, Excalibur, Luxor, and the MGM Grand itself, had the house brought down by a perfect example of vishing…a 10-minute phone call.
Gamblers could not gamble. Guests could not access rooms. Lights went out. The attack led to hours of delays in guest check-ins and affected electronic payments, key cards, thousands of slot machines, ATMs, parking, and other systems.
A malware research group called VX-Underground claimed that the RaaS group "ALPHV" (a.k.a. BlackCat, a ransomware-as-a-service) was responsible for the attack. An earlier Reuters story on 9/13 initially reported "Scattered Spider" (a group of kids operating in the U.S. and UK), as the perpetrator.
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