Casino giant Caesars confirms data breach

Photo courtesy of Sandy Huffaker, Corbis via Getty Images

Article courtesy of Priyamvada C and Abhijith Ganapavaram, Reuters

Las Vegas. - Caesars Entertainment (CZR.O) on Thursday confirmed a data breach that led to a leak of information, including details from its loyalty program database.

The company said hackers accessed details, including driver's license numbers and possibly social security numbers, for a "significant number of members in the database".

The disruption originated from a "social engineering attack" on the company's outsourced IT support vendor.

"We have incurred, and may continue to incur, certain expenses related to this attack, including expenses to respond to, remediate and investigate this matter," Caesars said in its latest regulatory filing.

Caesars paid roughly half of a $30 million ransom that hackers demanded after a cyberattack late this summer, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Caesars added it is still investigating the extent of the data leak "acquired by the unauthorized actor" and has no evidence to date that any member passwords/PINs, bank account information or payment card information were accessed.

Another casino operator MGM International (MGM.N) was also allegedly hacked by a group called Scattered Spider, Bloomberg News had reported.

Several MGM systems remained paralyzed for a third consecutive day, Reuters reported on Wednesday after the company shut down some of its computer systems over an unspecified cybersecurity issue.

Analysts at Moody's have warned MGM Resorts may see a negative impact to its credit rating after the recent data breach.