This is an updated version of a story first published on April 14, 2024. The original video can be viewed here.
In the past year — hospitals, pharmacies, tech companies, Las Vegas’ biggest hotels and casinos have been paralyzed by “ransomware” attacks, in which hackers break into a corporate network, encrypt, or lock up critical files and hold them hostage until a ransom is paid. As we first reported in April, it’s a crime that has been growing more costly and disruptive every year. Now cybersecurity researchers fear it’s about to get worse, with the emergence of an audacious group of young criminal hackers from the U.S., U.K. and Canada the FBI calls Scattered Spider. More troubling, they have teamed up with Russia’s most notorious ransomware gang.
Last September, one of the most pernicious ransomware attacks in history was unleashed on MGM Resorts – costing the hotel and casino giant more than $100 million. It disrupted operations at a dozen of the most renowned gaming palaces on the Las Vegas strip: MGM Grand, Aria, Mandalay Bay, New York-New York, the Bellagio.
Anthony Curtis is a Las Vegas fixture. He’s so good at counting cards, he’s been banned from card games here. He now publishes the “Las Vegas Advisor,” a monthly newsletter on all things Vegas.
Anthony Curtis: Incredibly, when it happened, I was in an MGM property, and it happened while we were having dinner and there just began to be a rumbling that something was going…
