Answers about Casinos

"Although members of the group may be less experienced and younger than many of the established multifaceted extortion/ransomware groups and nation state espionage actors, they are a serious threat to large organizations in the U.S.," he added.

The shakeup comes six weeks after DailyMail.com reported that federal agents from California had visited Resorts World in connection with their widening probe of an illegal sports betting ring that catered to MLB and NFL players.

"Our investigation is ongoing and we are working diligently to determine the nature and scope of the matter," MGM said in a post on the social media website X on Monday. (Reporting by Raphael Satter, Zeba Siddiqui and Christopher Bing; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Stephen Coates)

Last month, DailyMail.com reported that more than a dozen employees of Resorts World and the MGM Grand had been subpoenaed as part of the investigation into the gambling ring run by former minor league baseball player Wayne Nix, according to a person familiar with the matter.

According to court filings, the Nix betting ring operated at the highest levels of professional sports, with former pro athletes acting as bookies, and clients including an MLB coach, active NFL and MLB players, an NBA player's business manager, and a sports broadcaster.

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON, Sept 13 (Reuters) - A hacking group named Scattered Spider brought down the systems of the $14 billion gaming giant MGM Resorts International this week, two sources familiar with the matter said, as U.S. law enforcement officials started a probe into the breach.

Moody's analysts said in a report that the incident "highlights key risks related to (MGM's) business operations' heavy reliance on technology and the operational disruption caused when systems need to go offline or are inoperable."

Sources say the federal probe is examining the possibility that current or former Las Vegas hotel employees acted as agents in the betting network, or paid off their own personal gambling debts to Nix with casino resources.

Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the hacking group Scattered Spider was behind it. Identified by analysts last year, this group uses social engineering to lure users into giving up their login credentials or one-time-password (OTP) codes to bypass multi-factor authentication, the security firm Crowdstrike said in a blog post in January.

Nevada gaming laws prevent casinos from working with any convicted illegal gambler. The Nevada Gaming Control Board said in February that Sattler's allegations were unsubstantiated, and cleared Sibella of wrongdoing. 

A Bloomberg report separately said another casino Online operator, Caesars Entertainment, had been hacked and paid ransom to hackers who threatened to leak its data in recent weeks, citing two people familiar with the mater.

Messages seeking further comment from MGM and the U.S. cybersecurity watchdog agency CISA were not immediately returned. MGM Resorts' website was "currently unavailable," according to a holding message posted to the group's homepage.

Several MGM systems remained paralyzed for a third straight day after it said on Monday it had shut some of them to contain a "cybersecurity issue." The company, which operates over 30 hotel and gaming venues around the world including in Macau and Las Vegas, said it was investigating the incident.

Scattered Spider, also known as UNC3944, has hit telecom and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies in the past, but more recently also targeted critical infrastructure organizations, according to analyst reports.

It is "one of the most prevalent and aggressive threat actors impacting organizations in the United States today," Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Alphabet Inc's Mandiant Intelligence said in a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday, following reports about the MGM breach.

Federal agents are specifically looking at allegations that employees used comps and promo chips to pay off personal gambling debts to Nix, the Nevada Current first reported, and sources confirmed to DailyMail.com.