Grand Sierra Attacked By Computer Virus

Security officials, on June 5, 2007, said that Reno's largest 'hotel casino' was attempting to recover the four-day computer virus assault that prevented Grand Sierra Resort from creating swipe-card room keys, as per the news published by News.rgj on June 6, 2007.

In June 2006, the Reno Hilton Hotel was changed to Grand Sierra Resort Casino. The Grand Sierra Casino's work is outsourced to former chairman and CEO of MGM Grand, Larry Woolf of the Navegante Group. Woolf has the long experience of consulting, building, and managing 60 casinos throughout the globe.

Thomas Schrade, president of the company said that on Friday and Saturday i.e. on 2nd and 3rd June 2007, almost 2,000 rooms, and 10 restaurants were booked excluding those renovated hotel condominiums.

According to news published by News.rgj on June 6, 2007, Schrade continued that the computer virus attacks on June 2, 2007 and creates a lot of problem. This virus is an external virus and got into the system creating hue and cry and it also lead to production of keys for the rooms.

According to the news published on News.rgj on June 6, 2007, Schrade said, "The virus attacked on Saturday, resulting in the entire network to go kaput." "It's an ongoing problem and some web access problems are still there. The hotel authorities do not believe the virus has caused serious problems for the information store on Grand Sierra machines, as it didn't leak out customer's financial information or club's private data. The experts are still trying to track the problem."

It has been notified under Nevada law that a customer should be informed if a hacker start stealing personal information from a company's account. Moreover if the number of affected customer reaches 100, the company should immediately reports to the credit agencies.

According to the news on News.rgj on June 6, 2007 Schrade claims that the Grand Sierra's key guards do not possess customer's data and the virus was a network one which did not gain any access to database.

A security-expert with Reno based Data Clone labs Ira Victor said that the hotel should find out the origin of the virus and the systems, which are linked to the exploited virus. Though, she is not handling this case of Grand Sierra.

Ira, in her article in trade magazine Security Technology and design, writes that nowadays viruses attack peripheral systems like security cameras and entryways.

Related article: Gourmet Coffee Roaster Convicted for Libel and Hacking Rival Website

» SPAMfighter News - 6/19/2007