During the past week, two major casinos in Las Vegas, MGM Resorts and Caesars, were both targeted and hacked. The MGM group was hacked by a group called ALPHV, who are known in underground hacker circles. ALPHV utilized a technique known as “help desk phishing” to gain access to the system. Once inside, they used the Okta Agent to steal passwords and distributed malware to over 100 ESXi servers.
ALPHV attempted to negotiate a ransom payment with MGM, but the company refused to engage in any discussions. On the other hand, Caesars revealed that they were also attacked using social engineering tactics. The attacker gained access to the Caesars system on September 7th and stole data, demanding a ransom of $30 million. Eventually, Caesars decided to pay a ransom of approximately $15 million to have the stolen data deleted.
Source: Cyberscoop, Bleeping Computer
TLDR: Las Vegas casinos MGM Resorts and Caesars fell victim to hacking incidents recently. MGM was hacked by a group called ALPHV, who used help desk phishing and distributed malware to multiple servers. Caesars, on the other hand, experienced a social engineering attack resulting in the theft of data and a $30 million ransom demand, with the company eventually paying $15 million.
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