San Francisco: Lina Khan, the chair of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), was reportedly among thousands of guests staying at one of the MGM hotels in Las Vegas as the MGM Resorts International suffered a massive hacking, leading to the shut down of its slot machines and ATMs amid website outages.
An FTC spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that Khan was in Las Vegas to attend listening sessions on the proposed $24.6 billion merger of the grocery-story giants Kroger and Albertsons.
The spokesperson, however, declined to say whether the FTC will probe MGM’s data security practices.
Khan was “among the 45 people waiting to check in at the MGM Grand along the Las Vegas strip as staff worked to manually fulfill everyone’s reservation,” said the report, citing people familiar with the matter.
“When Khan and her staff got to the front of the line, an employee at the desk asked them to write down their credit card information on a piece of paper,” the report mentioned.
Khan asked the staff how MGM was managing the data security and the desk agent “shrugged and said he didn’t know”.
Khan and the senior aide with her “didn’t receive a receipt”.
MGM Resorts didn’t immediately comment on the report.
Earlier this week, a massive “cybersecurity issue” at the MGM Resorts forced the hotel and casino company to shut down its slot machines and ATMs.
The MGM resorts website also went down after the cyber attack.
The hotel guests were unable to access ATMs, buy food, or use their digital room keys.
“Our investigation is ongoing and we are working together diligently to determine the nature and scope of the matter,” the hotel and casino company had said in a statement.
The company notified law enforcement and “took prompt action to protect our systems and data, including shutting down certain systems.
MGM also provided a list of concierge phone numbers at several locations, like the Aria, The Cosmopolitan, Mandalay Bay, Bellagio, New York-New York, and Vdara.
The cyber-security issue was not just limited to MGM’s Las Vegas locations.
MGM’s Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City was affected as well as MGM Grand Detroit Casino.
–IANS