- The Menominee Casino Resort in Wisconsin is currently closed for investigations by the FBI after being cyberattacked.
- The casino is just one of what is expected to be thousands that will see data breaches in 2021.
- Menominee says no customer information seems to have been acquired by the hackers thus far in the investigation.
KESHENA, Wisc. – The Menominee Casino Resort in Wisconsin fell victim to cyberattacks that have closed the casino as of Friday. It is believed that the intent of the attacks was to shut down the casino completely.
However, this is merely a temporary closure as investigations take place and better security measures are enforced to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
The Wisconsin gambling establishment is currently working with the FBI’s forensic team as well as its cybersecurity specialists.
It is not yet fully known how the casino and its patrons have been affected by this incident.
What Happened At Menominee?
The computer systems for the gaming establishment were hacked but at this time it is not believed that any personal information of its customers were accessed.
"The information is constantly changing, and we’re trying to be as transparent as possible," said Daniel Hanson, the general manager of the Menominee Casino Resort. "Even though we believe nothing was taken, if that changes, we’ll immediately tell people."
It is projected that the financial hit the casino will take because of these attacks will be significant. Each day they are closed investigating the issue is a day with no profits coming in.
Casinos and gaming establishments nationwide have been seeing more and more of their online gambling information being breached in an attempt for ransom by the hackers.
Retail casinos are the targets for most of these attacks as their data is easier to hack into. According to John Chambers, the former CEO of Cisco, there will be an estimated 65,000 – 100,000 attacks on casino data this year. With each occurrence, investigations cost about $170,000 to resolve.
On the high end, that’s over a million dollars in money going toward security problems with casinos.
“I think cybersecurity is one of the top three issues facing corporate boardrooms,” said Chambers. “And being very candid, having been the CEO and a chairman, it's uncomfortable because you get your chief information security officer up in front of the court. They show the data. And your board looks at you, and they say, can you prevent this?”
What’s Next For Menominee
Other casinos that have endured similar situations in the U.S. have had to be closed for weeks. But Menominee hopes to resolve this problem quickly.
Should any of their customers have been affected, they will be individually contacted. And if anything monetary has happened, Menominee will fix those problems for their players as well.
For now, it looks as though nothing of importance has been taken by the hackers as far as information is concerned and hopefully the investigation will conclude these same findings.