{"id":1181823,"date":"2023-09-14T09:11:13","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T13:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1181823"},"modified":"2023-09-14T09:11:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T13:11:13","slug":"a-phone-call-to-helpdesk-was-likely-all-it-took-to-hack-mgm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1181823","title":{"rendered":"A phone call to helpdesk was likely all it took to hack MGM"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"rss-wrap\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/bellagio-800x450-1.jpg\" alt=\"Bellagio fountain\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\" style=\"font-size:0.8em\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/bellagio.jpg\" class=\"enlarge-link\" data-height=\"788\" data-width=\"1400\">Enlarge<\/a> <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> Gamblers and hotel guests at MGM casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, including the Bellagio, were affected by the security breach. (credit: Ethan Miller\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<div><a name=\"page-1\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A cyber criminal gang proficient in impersonation and malware has been identified as the likely culprit for an attack that paralized networks at US casino operator MGM Resorts International.<\/p>\n<p>The group, which security researchers call \u201cScattered Spider,\u201d uses fraudulent phone calls to employees and help desks to \u201cphish\u201d for login credentials. It has targeted MGM and dozens of other Western companies with the aim of extracting ransom payments, according to two people familiar with the situation.<\/p>\n<p>The operator of hotel casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, including the Bellagio, Aria, Cosmopolitan, and Excalibur, preemptively shut down large parts of its internal networks after discovering the breach on Sunday, one of the people said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1968329#p3\">Read 11 remaining paragraphs<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1968329&amp;comments=1\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: Ars Technica &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1968329\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A phone call to helpdesk was likely all it took to hack MGM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enlarge \/ Gamblers and hotel guests at MGM casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, including the Bellagio, were affected by the security breach. (credit: Ethan Miller\/Getty Images) A cyber criminal gang proficient in impersonation and malware has been identified as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1181823\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1181824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,110],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-1181823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-technica","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-ars-technica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1181823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1181824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1181823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1181823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1181823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}