Las Vegas Sands hackers may have penetrated databases deeper than first thought
News on 19 Feb 2014
News on 19 Feb 2014
Fears are growing that the hacking attack on the Las Vegas Sands websites (see previous reports) may have penetrated deeper than was at first thought by company spokesman Ron Reese.
Only hours after the websites were restored after almost a week of downtime, the hackers, using the nom-de-plume Anti-WMD Team posted an 11-minute video on Youtube indicating that they had achieved access to extensive corporate information.
The vid was posted from an account named “Zhao Anderson” and was subsequently anonymously flagged to a number of media outlets, presumably to ensure that it was given publicity.
Although the vid was quickly taken down by Youtube, it was not before a number of industry, media and security observers had viewed it, reporting that the hacking gang claimed to have made off with 828 gigs of information from the corporate records of the huge company, owned by multi-billionaire land gambling baron Sheldon Adelson.
The publication Net Security reported that highly sensitive financial and personal information and technical passwords appeared to among the data displayed in the video, indicating that the criminal penetration went far deeper than Sands’ claims that the assault was halted at the corporate mail server.
Sands spokesman Ron Reese was quick to respond to the vid, admitting that his company has since established that the hackers had “…reached at least some of the company’s internal drives in the US.”
He advised that company (and presumably FBI) investigators were reviewing the Youtube vid in an attempt to determine exactly how big the security breach had been and what, if any, data may have been stolen.
However, he sounded a note of optimism in saying the company does not believe that its “core operating systems” were invaded.
The hacking attack was allegedly mounted in retaliation for an Adelson speech in Israel in which he reportedly advocated a US nuclear strike in the Iranian desert to deter that country from further nuclear development.
