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MGM Resorts’ Chief Technology Officer has offered Boyd Gaming support in the wake of a cyberattack that was made public earlier this week.
Boyd Gaming shared details of an internal data breach earlier this week that largely affected employees. In the wake of the cyberattack, MGM Resorts CTO John Branden Newman was found suitable as an officer by the Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday, September 25.
The Commission has asked for details about the attack against Boyd and the 2023 attack against MGM in a licensing hearing. Newman reportedly reached out to Boyd when its cyberattack was first filed with the SEC, according to the Review Journal. Newman currently oversees a team of 653 employees, including 376 in Nevada, and previously worked as an IT specialist with the Air Force, the DoD, and the private sector before joining MGM.
“It’s obviously unfortunate that a lot of the players in the industry and various industries actually are still getting hit by these same types of attacks,” Newman told commissioners. “We did reach out and offer our support. I don’t have a lot of detailed information about it. The current chief information security officer was the one that was doing that coordination with Boyd during that time to offer ours.”
More details about the MGM attack
Newman confirmed to the Commission that a teenager had surrendered to authorities at the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center and attended a court appearance before Family Court Judge Dee Smart Butler on Wednesday, September 24. He is alleged to be involved in the MGM attack.
The 17-year-old was just 15 when the attack took place in 2023. He has been charged with three counts of obtaining and using personal identifying information of another person to harm or impersonate a person, one count of extortion, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, and one count of unlawful acts regarding computers. He is expected to be tried as an adult.
“It was obviously a very difficult time for us responding to that incident and rebuilding the environment,” Newman told commissioners. “We have put in numerous controls to reduce the risk of any further occurrence of this, and we keep our eye on all the threat intelligence across the industry, including keeping up with the various threat actors that are still hitting people in our industry. We’re still working with the FBI.”
Newman went on to note that young offenders like the MGM suspect are often recruited by criminals.
“It’s very unfortunate,” he explained. “They use these people to distance themselves from the actual law enforcement because these players are normally the last mile that are the touch points, but they’re not the brains behind the operation. So we’re continuing to work with them, and we’ve read on a few people from our team to help the FBI go further in as far as we can to get closer to the real people behind the scenes.”
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
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