Gateway Casinos & Entertainment Ltd. from Canada has officially confirmed this object a cyber attack. The company’s 14 casinos in the province of Ontario were initially closed Casino Rama Resort, which closed on April 16. Casinos were hit by a ransomware attack that reportedly caused an IT outage.
When Casino Rama abruptly shut down around 1:00pm CDT on Sunday the 16th, the company said only that an IT outage was to blame, not the cause of the outage. All gaming operations were shut down and the company statement only said: “Gateway Casino locations in Ontario experienced a system-wide IT outage.”
Restaurants and hotel still open at Casino Rama
The casino’s Instagram feed recently said: “The Rama Resort hotel casino, Balance In Life Spa, Weirs and St. Germain restaurants remain open. St. Germain is open Wednesday through Sunday.”
Very little additional information was provided over the next few days until Gateway announced the reasons for the closures on Friday, almost a week later. The company now says it is not aware of any sensitive or private information that was compromised. The investigation into the incident is still ongoing. and many of the company’s 7,000 employees are idle.
iHeart Radio reported on Friday that all casinos would remain closed indefinitely cyber professionals They do their job to ensure the integrity of the systems.
Chris de Burgh’s concert scheduled for Friday has been postponed to April 27th. The Quiet Riot, Warrant and Helix concert scheduled for Saturday has been postponed to October 7th. All tickets purchased through My Club Rewards and Ticketmaster are valid on the new dates. There was no talk of repayments. The Casino Rama event center has a capacity for 5,000 people.
Friday’s announcement confirmed that an offense had taken place and that all Casinos would be closed for at least the weekend. No change had been announced as of Sunday evening.
The company’s website, originally published on Friday, April 21st, added the following: “Gateway casinos and entertainment sites in ontar will remain closed through the coming weekend as we continue to resolve a cybersecurity incident and make plans for reopening at each location. While we are unable to confirm a reopening date at this time, we continue to work with all relevant parties to do everything we can to restore our IT systems, reopen our locations and get our people back to work.”
However, not all funds flow to the company as another 15 casinos in different provinces remain open.
Catalyst Capital Group is the majority shareholder of the company and the gateway operates the gaming venues for the respective provincial governments in which they operate and shares with them the revenues that are used for the common good.
The company’s announcement also states: “We would like to reiterate that we have notified the relevant data protection officials, law enforcement agencies and government regulators of the cyber incident.”
History of 30 years in Canada
Last year Gateway celebrated 30 years of participation in the Gambling and entertainment business in Canada. Casino Rama opened on July 31, 1996 and remained open continuously until it was forced to close during the 2020 global health emergency.
The company said it workswith external experts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”to determine whether there has been an impact on personal data in this case.”
Interestingly, just days before the cyberattack, Global News published an article warning of the increased risk of Russian cyberattacks in Canada in response to the country’s support for Ukraine. While there is still no evidence that Russian officials are responsible for the recent attack on a Canadian company, it has been identified as a criminal hacking group and a ransom has been demanded. Goal neither confirmed nor denied if he paid and was attacked anyway.
Pro-Russian groups called for several recent cyber attacks in canadaincluding Prime Minister Trudeau’s website and the Port of Quebec and Laurentian Bank websites.
For a list of all significant cyberattacks against Canadian government institutions and corporations, see the Kon Briefing (Here).
Spring: Gateway Casinos confirms cyber attack on Ontario’s IT infrastructureCasino.org, April 22, 2023
