The attacks show how even organizations that you might expect to be especially locked down and protected from cybersecurity attacks - say, massive casino chains that pull in tens of millions of dollars every day - are still vulnerable if the hacker uses the right attack vector. The company did not reveal just how many people that includes, but says it is providing free credit monitoring services to them, which has become the standard response from companies who can’t secure their customers’ data.

Several weeks later, on October 5, MGM provided another update with some bad news for its guests: The hackers were able to access their personal information, including names, contact information, gender, date of birth, and driver’s license, passport, and even Social Security numbers, from “some customers” before March 2019. It did not provide any additional information on the reason why its systems went down in the first place. “We thank you for your patience,” the company said in its statement. It took about 10 days, but MGM announced on September 20 that its hotels and casinos were “operating normally” again, although there may be some “intermittent issues” and MGM Rewards may not be available. MGM Resorts didn’t respond to a request for comment, and has only posted vague references to a “cybersecurity issue” on Twitter/X, reassuring guests it was working to resolve the issue and that its resorts were staying open. Guests found themselves waiting in hours-long lines to check in and get physical room keys or getting handwritten receipts for casino winnings as the company went into manual mode to stay as operational as possible. Even websites for its many properties went offline for a while. MGM, which owns more than two dozen hotel and casino locations around the world as well as an online sports betting arm, reported on September 11 that a “cybersecurity issue” was affecting some of its systems, which it shut down to “protect our systems and data.” For the next several days, reports said everything from hotel room digital keys to slot machines weren’t working.

And it may have all started with a phone call, if reports citing the hackers themselves are to be believed. Did prominent casino chain MGM Resorts gamble with its customers’ data? That’s a question a lot of those customers are probably asking themselves after a cyberattack took down many of MGM’s systems for several days.

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