The online home for the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB), the agency charged with the oversight of all of the state's authorized gambling activities, was restored to service on Friday after several days of downtime after the site was hacked by as-yet-unidentified cyberattackers.
The NGCB had acknowledged via social media on Thursday that the site had been hacked, and that restoration efforts had been ongoing.
Personal and financial data not compromised
The NGCB, which also includes the policy-making Nevada Gaming Commission, serves as the state's portal for information on gaming regulations, gambling-industry statistics, press releases, meetings and agendas, agency contact information, and much more. What the portal doesn't host are financial records or personally identifying information, the theft of which is frequently the objectives of hackers' efforts.
The lack of available personal records or financial information on the website calls into question whether the hacking was done out of financial motive, as happened with the major cyberattacks on MGM and Caesars last fall. MGM declined to pay the ransom asked for by the hackers and incurred a $100 million loss. Both of those cyberattacks remain under investigation at both the state and federal levels.
The downtime did not impact the regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Nevada Gaming Commission held on Wednesday.
