Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Regulator: Las Vegas Sands hackers didn’t steal credit cards

The Venetian

Ethan Miller/Las Vegas Sun

The Venetian on the Las Vegas Strip.

Updated Thursday, Feb. 13, 2014 | 3:02 p.m.

A Nevada gambling regulator said Thursday that the hackers who knocked down all Las Vegas Sands websites for three days and counting did not steal any patron data, including credit card information.

Nevada Gaming Control Board chairman A.G. Burnett said regulators' first priority after the world's largest casino operator was hacked Monday was to ensure the safety of player information and the integrity of the gambling systems.

Burnett said Sands has confirmed that hackers did not compromise these two areas.

Last December, Las Vegas-based casino operator Affinity Gaming announced that its credit-card transactions had been hacked and warned its 300,000 customers to take steps to protect themselves from identity theft.

"The Affinity case looks a lot different," Burnett said. "That's more akin to what happened with Target. But that's not what happened at Sands according to our information."

Sands spokesman Ron Reese declined to discuss whether credit card information was breached in the hacking, and instead pointed to a statement the company made on Wednesday saying working through a step-by-step process to ascertain what systems had been impacted.

The damage the hacking has done goes beyond the defaced websites, which Sands took down Tuesday morning. Company employees remain unable to log into their work computers.

Gaming regulators are now working to ensure Sands did everything possible to protect employee information. The hackers, whose identities remain unknown, posted Social Security numbers on the Sands sites. The information belonged to employees of Sands' Bethlehem, Pa. casino.

Sands employs about 5,000 people around the world.

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