Caesars Entertainment Pays $15M to Hackers for Stolen Customer Data

Caesars Entertainment reportedly paid $15 million to appease hackers threatening to leak sensitive customer data from a cyberattack in August.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Caesars paid the hackers half of their $30 million demand.

On Wednesday, it was reported that the breach was due to a “social engineering attack on an outsourced IT support vendor.”

The perpetrators reportedly acquired a copy of Caesars’ loyalty program database, which contained sensitive information like driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers “for a significant number” of customers.

“We have taken steps to ensure that the stolen data is deleted by the unauthorized actor, although we cannot guarantee this result,” Caesars said in the filing. “We are monitoring the web and have not seen any evidence that the data has been further shared, published, or otherwise misused.”

Sources close to the situation told Bloomberg that a group called Scattered Spider or UNC 3944, which specializes in social engineering attacks, is believed to be responsible.

Caesars stated there is “no evidence” of a financial data breach, however, they will be offering credit monitoring and identity protection to loyalty program members.

“The full scope of the costs and related impacts of this incident, including the extent to which these costs will be offset by our cybersecurity insurance or potential indemnification claims against third parties, has not been determined,” the filing added.