A teenage boy, accused of cyber hacking Las Vegas casinos and costing them more than $100 million, has turned himself in to Las Vegas police, according to authorities. The cyber scheme took place between August and October of 2023, the Las Vegas Police Department said in a news release.
Authorities had believed a well-coordinated hacking group, which went by several different names — “Scattered Spider,” “Octo Tempest,” “UNC3944” and “0ktapus” — was responsible.
However, after further investigation, detectives identified a teenage boy as a suspect in the case. On Sept. 17 he turned himself in to the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center and was formally charged.
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Casinos hit by targeted cyberattack
According to reports, the hacker targeted MGM Resorts, which operates MGM Grand, The Cosmopolitan, Bellagio, Luxor and Excalibur properties. Hotel reservations, casino floors, slot machines and workers’ paychecks were all affected.
The hacker used LinkedIn to find out who was working at MGM Grand at the time and then called MGM’s tech support department pretending to be a real employee, police said. He tricked the IT department into resetting a password over the phone and got into MGM’s internal systems shortly after.
The heist disabled the casino’s slot machines, disabled digital room keys, blocked MGM employees from accessing their work email and prevented MGM from accepting new hotel reservations.
Caesars, the company that owns properties like Caesars Palace, also experienced a similar hacking incident involving stolen data and system breaches.
Teen faces multiple felony charges
The teen is charged with three counts of obtaining and using personal identifying information of another person to harm or impersonate a person, one count of extortion, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, and one count of unlawful acts regarding computers.
