In February 2014, the Las Vegas Sands Casino had to deal with a tenacious hacker, according to news reported by Bloomberg and the Asian Poker live website. The attack did not target any data or money; it seemed to just cause chaos and serve as a personal attack on Sheldon Adelson, CEO of the company, as per the report.
It seems that the perpetrators of the attack were not pleased with Adelson’s open support of Israel. Last month, James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, reported to an Armed Services Committee of the US Senate that the hack was indeed perpetrated by Iran and not any mediocre hacking group.
The hack
During the hack, the attackers took over the website of the casino and displayed on it an image of the casino burning up in flames along with another image showcasing Adelson and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, interacting. The hackers also seemed to have sent a message with the warning of not to condone the use of mass destruction weapons. Another aspect to the hack was the inclusion of details of some employees of the casino company which could be accessed via a scroll bar.
Technological capabilities
While Clapper did state in his report that the technological capabilities of North Korea and Israel left much to be desired, especially when compared to those of China and Russia, he also mentioned that attacks of the above kind can result in much destruction. He also stated that such attacks demonstrated that Israel and North Korea are quite unpredictable. Clapper also indicated that instead of one single attack that could cripple the entire United States’ infrastructure, small but persistent attacks, like the one on Sands casino, while not extremely debilitating by themselves, can have a huge cumulative effect.