Month: February 2020

A recent ZDnet exclusive revealed that personal information of 10.6 million guests who stayed at MGM Resorts hotels was stolen by hackers last summer and posted on a hacking forum last week.

The 10,683,188 records included full names, home addresses, phone numbers, emails, and dates of birth. The list of customers whose data were stolen includes tech CEOs and celebrities, such as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and pop star Justin Bieber.

In a statement made by MGM: “We are confident that no financial, payment card or password data was involved in this matter.” None of the guests stayed at the hotel past 2017.

In November 2018, the Marriott hotel chain announced that data of 500 million hotel guests was hacked in 2014.
The Marriott incident is the biggest data breach for the hospitality industry.

Read more about it here.

The FBI’s Internal Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has released its FBI 2019 Internet Crime Report. The report highlights Cybercrime trends in 2019.

“IC3 received 467,361 complaints in 2019 – an average of nearly 1,300 every day – and recorded more than $3.5 billion in losses to individual and business victims. The most frequently reported complaints were phishing and similar ploys, non-payment/non-delivery scams, and extortion.”

“While email is still a common entry point, frauds are also beginning on text messages—a crime called smishing—or even fake websites—a tactic called pharming.”

“You may get a text message that appears to be your bank asking you to verify information on your account.”

Business email compromise (BEC), or email account compromise, recorded 23,775 complaints in 2019, causing $1.7 billion in losses – about half of the total losses.

Read more about it here.

The city of Racine, Wisconsin, joined the long list of US municipalities that were hit with ransomware attack. On January 31, 2020, the city’s computer systems were infected by ransomware.

As of this writing, the city’s website, email and online payment collection systems are still offline. Residents who needed services were asked to come to City Hall.

Racine Mayor Cory Mason said that the city hasn’t received a specific ransom demand, and even if they did, they wouldn’t pay it.

Racine has a cyber-insurance policy, which should cover most of the expenses incurred restoring computer services.

Read more about it here.