MGM Resorts Hack Becomes Hassle for Vacationers Who Must Use Cash

The cyberattack on MGM Resorts is still reportedly causing trouble for travelers.

Guests at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas are dealing with restaurants and bars that are only taking cash and slot machines that aren’t in operation, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Sept. 13).

“People came to play, they couldn’t play and they left,” said Marina Lopez, a hotel guest from Santa Cruz, California, per the report.

MGM Resorts, Las Vegas’ largest casino operator, posted on X, formerly Twitter, Monday (Sept. 11) that it was dealing with a cybersecurity problem that had caused outages across its properties. The company said it was investigating with help from leading external cybersecurity experts.

“We also notified law enforcement and took prompt action to protect our systems and data, including shutting down certain systems,” MGM wrote in the post.

The following day, the company provided an update, saying its resorts are “operational” and that guests “remain able to access their hotel rooms, and our front desk staff is ready to assist our guests as needed.”

However, it isn’t clear how operational things are, Bloomberg reported. Sportsbooks at the MGM Grand and Cosmopolitan were shut down, while guests underwent longer-than-normal check-ins as staff had to do everything by hand.

In addition, many of the MGM resort websites are still down Wednesday, with the company sending customers to third-party services to book rooms.

It’s not the first such incident MGM Resorts has dealt with. In 2022, the company suffered a data breach that left more than 140 million guests’ personal information published on Telegram. And after a report in 2020 that information about 10.6 million guests was compromised, the company acknowledged it had experienced a data breach the previous year.

The latest hack comes amid a challenging economic environment that has made companies think about whether their security is up to par.

“Authentication and enterprise-level digital identity verification have become crucial to helping firms identify digital fraud today while protecting against it tomorrow,” that report said, also noting the “greenfield opportunity for providers and platforms to help automate the verification of counterparties’ identities, payment details and accounts.”

However, many global businesses don’t have access to the modern digital tools they need to identify fraud vulnerabilities and reduce their risks.

Around 38% of businesses employ document and identity authentication tools, and roughly a third of those companies wanting to modernize ID processes will outsource that work. PYMNTS Intelligence in the “B2B Payments Fraud Tracker” found that 71% of businesses said they need more digital fraud solutions.