MGM Resorts Suffers Company-Wide Cyberattack

Article by : Erik Gibbs Sep 14, 2023

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In the early hours of Monday morning, MGM Resorts sounded the alarm over a cybersecurity incident that has crippled essential systems within the company’s operations.

The full extent of the issue remains to be seen. Still, the fallout has rendered various of MGM’s email systems unusable, prompting the resort giant to communicate via a temporary Gmail account.

Furthermore, all pages related to MGM’s US-based casino websites, including the reservation system, must be available. These have continued redirecting visitors to a basic white page advising them to contact concierge services for assistance.

As the morning progressed, it became evident that the issue was also affecting the gaming floors. A snapshot of numerous offline slot machines at Aria on the Las Vegas Strip surfaced on the X social media platform early Monday morning.

Reports on X also indicated that slot machines were down at Borgata in Atlantic City and MGM Northfield in Ohio. Fox 5 Las Vegas reported that Bellagio was forced to operate all computer-based functions manually, with credit card machines offline, rendering operations cash-only.

The problem has reportedly extended to ATM services, leaving some guests locked out of their rooms due to the inoperable app, which controls digital room keys.

While details regarding the incident remain limited, MGM Resorts has notified law enforcement agencies, indicating that the situation is potentially a cyberattack. In a statement, MGM noted that some systems were proactively shut down to safeguard data and may remain unaffected by the breach.

The statement also added that MGM Resorts was leading an investigation with assistance from the most relevant external cybersecurity experts. The company mentioned that they had addressed the situation with authorities and that all efforts were devoted to solving all related issues.

MGM stock was down 2.37% at $42.70 at the market close. MGM Resorts has been contacted by various news outlets for information on whether gaming operations have been impacted, and the situation is expected to develop further.

MGM Macau appears to be unaffected by the cybersecurity incident. Still, BetMGM customers in Nevada have reported difficulties logging in, according to the Associated Press.

This is not MGM’s first brush with cybersecurity issues. In 2020, the personal details of 10.6 million guests were publicly released online, including full names, addresses, phone numbers, emails and birthdates.

MGM traced this data breach to a cybersecurity incident in the summer of 2019 and notified affected guests in line with state laws.