Data published on hacking forum
MGM Resorts International has confirmed that its database was hacked last summer, compromising the personal details of 10.6 million people who have stayed at one of the company’s hotels since 2017. These personal details were published on a hacking forum this week.
Among those whose personal details have been compromised are Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and popstar Justin Bieber, as reported by ZDNet. The business technology website verified the authenticity of this data.
personal details were published on a hacking forum this week
Published data includes full names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers of these guests. Not only have regular visitors and high-profile figures been affected by the breach, so too have FBI agents and reporters.
Source of the leak
An MGM Resorts spokesperson admitted that a hack had taken place last year. This spokesperson said that the information was accessed following a security incident that occurred in July 2019. This was when MGM “discovered unauthorized access to a cloud server that contained a limited amount of information for certain previous guests of MGM Resorts.”
MGM has reiterated that no passwords or financial data was exposed during this data breach. An internal investigation was conducted by the company immediately after the incident was detected.
Another significant data breach
Naturally, this is a significant data breach. However, there have been larger leaks in recent years involving the hotel industry.
For example, Marriott Hotels had its databases breached in 2017, resulting in Chinese hackers gaining access to the personal information of 500 million guests.?
A busy month for MGM
February has been a very busy month for MGM Resorts. The company’s CEO, Jim Murren, announced that he will be stepping down when a successor has been found.
The company also had to close its two Macau casinos for 15 days due to the coronavirus epidemic. Finally, news broke that MGM Resorts is the standout candidate to receive a casino resort license in Osaka, Japan.