Caesars Admits to Second Cyber Attack That Compromised Customer Data... After Paying Ransom

Last month MGM suffered a massive breakdown of its services.  Room keys could not be programmed.  ATMs and slot machines were down.  Payouts mostly had to be done manually.  The culprit:  A massive cyber attack.

The breach at MGM was preceded by a similar attack at another casino company, Caesars.  Unlike MGM, Caesars paid a ransom to keep its system from being shut down.  As such, we hardly knew they suffered a breach.

Now, Caesars Entertainment (CZR) has admitted that it has been subject to a second attack, which might have compromised data for some of its customers.

Both companies are facing lawsuits in the wake of the attacks.  MGM says that social security numbers, driver's license numbers and passport information was all compromised during the attack.

The named plaintiff, Miguel Rodriguez, filed the class action Friday in federal court in Nevada, on behalf of himself and other members of Caesars' loyalty programs, who are now at risk of cybercriminals using the six terabytes of stolen sensitive information to take out loans using customers’ identities, file fraudulent tax returns and obtain false identifications and phony driver licenses.

“Plaintiff seeks to hold defendant responsible for the injuries defendant inflicted on plaintiff and tens of thousands similarly situated persons due to defendant’s impermissibly inadequate data security, which caused the personal information of plaintiff and those similarly situated to be exfiltrated by unauthorized access by cybercriminals at a still undetermined and/or undisclosed time but was otherwise discovered on Sept. 7,” the suit said. 

Rodriguez is being represented by Las Vegas-based attorney Miles Clark.

MGM says its losses were $100 million.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com