Hackers say they stole 6 terabytes of data from casino giants MGM,...

The Betting and Gaming Council said: ‘At the start of the pandemic, the BGC took action which has led to the number of safer gambling messages on websites more than doubling and the number of direct interventions increased by 25 per cent on customers who were spending more time or money betting than they did before Covid.

Several security analysts have drawn attention to the group over the past year for its effective social engineering tactics. It is known to reach out to a target an organization's information security teams by phone, pretending to be an employee needing their password reset.

Carolyn Harris, the Labour MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for gambling, said: ‘These massive losses show that gambling companies are cashing in on coronavirus and the extraordinary hardship some families are facing in lockdown.'

Palace of choice is a real casino which is played online..

"They tend to have most of the information they need before that call to the helpdesk - that is the last step," said Marc Bleicher, a security analyst who has conducted forensic investigations into such hacks before.

The FBI said it was investigating the incidents at MGM and Caesars, and declined further comment. (Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in San Francisco, Christopher Bing in Washington, and Priyamvada C and Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and David Gregorio)

Programs such as WinZip, or 7Zip compress files into a smaller space.

Mandiant has linked Scattered Spider to over 100 intrusions in the last two years at companies ranging from gaming and technology firms to retailers, telecom and insurance firms, Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant told Reuters.

Matt Zarb-Cousin, of campaign group Clean Up Gambling, said: ‘In a sector that still derives the majority of its profits from people losing more than they can afford, the isolation of lockdown has further exposed the lack of protections online, particularly around addictive slots and best casino In games where stakes are still unlimited.

Operations at MGM, one of the world's largest casino and hotel operators, were still disrupted four days after news of the hack emerged. Social media posts had visuals of slot machines showing error messages at its Las Vegas casinos.

A separate study, published yesterday by the Gambling Commission, reported that the number of regular gamblers had fallen in the pandemic - due to the closure of bookmakers and cancellation of live sport.

Speaking to Reuters via the messaging platform Telegram, a representative for the group said it did not plan to make the data public, and declined to comment on whether it had asked the companies for ransom. "If MGM wish to release that information they will. We do not do that," the person said.

The group's contact was provided to Reuters by a cybersecurity expert who runs an online repository of malware samples called "vx-underground", and declined to be named. Caesars and MGM did not respond to requests for comment on the amount of the data that was breached.

Sept 14 (Reuters) - The Scattered Spider hacking group said on Thursday it took six terabytes of data from the systems of multi-billion-dollar casino operators MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment as both companies probed the breaches.

Caesars reported to regulators on Thursday it had found that on Sept. 7 hackers took data on a significant number of its loyalty program members, including "driver´s license numbers and/or social security numbers." Earlier, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported that Caesars had paid ransom, but Caesars declined a Reuters request for comment on the matter.