14 DAY TRIAL // After initially saying that it can’t find any evidence to suggest that customer information has been compromised, Las Vegas Sands Corp. now admits that the data breach suffered recently has impacted some casino patrons.
A couple of weeks ago, the casino operator announced restoring the casino websites defaced by hackers. At the time, they said gambling systems and customer information had not been compromised.
However, shortly after they made the statement, the hackers published an 11-minute video on YouTube to show that they had stolen over 828 GB of data from the company’s servers. After analyzing the video, Las Vegas Sands representatives admitted that customers had been impacted by the breach.
The company has launched a new website, sandsinfo.com, on which it provides details regarding the attack.
“We have determined that some employee and customer data at our Sands Bethlehem property has been compromised,” Las Vegas Sands stated.
“We are committed to ensuring the security of all data that our guests and team members entrust to us, and are providing free credit monitoring and identity theft protection service through Experian to identified customers by the data breach.”
The Bethlehem hotel-casino is located in Pennsylvania. From the servers that host the data for this property, the hackers have stolen credit card information, bank account information, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and other confidential information that can be used for gaming, tax reporting purposes, or to open a line of credit.
The Associated Press has learned that the number of victims is in the “mid-five figure range.” But that’s only “as far as the company could tell so far.”
The investigation into the data breach is ongoing, but it’s still uncertain how the hackers got in.
The company says there’s no evidence that the stolen information is being misused. It’s possible that the hackers will not disseminate any of the stolen data – mainly because they’re hacktivists and their goal has been to hurt the company, not necessarily its customers.
The attackers, a group called Anti WMD Team, say they’ve targeted Las Vegas Sands because of its CEO, Sheldon Adelson. A few months ago, Adelson said that the US should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.
In response, the hackers defaced several casino websites owned by Sands, posting a message which read, “Damn A, Don’t let your tongue cut your throat. Encouraging the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, under any conditions, is a Crime.”