Sheldon Adelson’s Corporation Targeted Due to Politics
The Las Vegas Sands Corporation is investigating an attack on their websites. The Nevada State Gaming Board, the FBI, and the Secret Service are all working with the Sands, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
Several websites owned by the Sands Corporation were hit, including the Venetian and Palazzo Casinos in Las Vegas. Besides their Las Vegas properties, the corporation owns casinos in Singapore, Macau, and elsewhere in the United States, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The official websites for any of these casino also may have been hit.
Anti-Proliferation and Anti-Israel Rhetoric
The hackers appear to have struck at the Las Vegas Sands for political reasons, particularly to express displeasure at Sheldon Adelson for his political views. Sheldon Adelson is vocal in his support for the State of Israel, which the hackers seem to take offense at. Adelson has called for the use of a preventive attack on the Iran, in hopes of ending its efforts to add the nuclear capability to Iran’s arsenal. The CEO of the Las Vegas Sands has called for the Israelis to launch a nuclear strike against Iran.
In response, the hackers posted a number of inflammatory comments on the websites they hit. The most inflammatory comments were, “Damn A (Adelson), don’t let your tongue cut your throat. Encouraging the use of weapons of mass destruction, under any conditions, is a crime.” The hackers also referred to themselves as the “Anti WMD Team“.
The hackers also posted on the Sands website a picture of Sheldon Adelson shaking hands with Benjamin Netanyahu, the chairman of the Likud Party and the current prime minister of Israel. Netanyahu, a right-leaning Israeli politician, has been the harshest critic of the Islamic Republic of Iran, comparing the country to Nazi Germany. In 2009, Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “Iran is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and constitutes the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence.”
Given the global nature of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and the high stakes involved, one can expect that every attempt will be made to locate and apprehend the perpetrators. Citizens in the United States and China may have had their identity information compromised, while the cyberattack seems critical of the policies of Israel and America. Players at the various Sands gambling houses are awaiting to see if their personal information was seized.
Focus of the Cyberattack
What is know is that the attack was extensive. The cyberattack on the Sands’ websites included taking down those sites’ operating systems, depriving employees of access to their accounts, and disrupting the email system. Employee information, including social security numbers and email addresses, were posted on the websites by the Anti WMD Team. No officials have stated whether the customer information was compromised, including credit card data.
Given the sensitive nature of such information, one can expect an announcement at an early date. The Las Vegas Sands Corp is not likely to want a repeat of the Affinity Gaming situation in 2013. In the Affinity Gaming matter, hackers found the credit and debit card information for 300,000 cardholders, which occurred between March and October of 2013. This fact was not disclosed to members until December 2013, prompting criticism.
If the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service are part of the investigation, their inclusion might tie the Sands Corporation’s hands in releasing information anytime soon. The political nature of the hacker attack is likely to be why the Secret Service is involved, so any political crime could involve motivations to maintain secrecy longer than would be expected in the everyday corporate world.
Sheldon Adelson’s Causes
Sheldon Adelson is no stranger to controversy. The man who runs the Las Vegas Sands Corporation is leading a personal crusade to end online casino gambling in the United States. He states that increased online gambling could put more families at risk of financial ruin in the United States, so such activities must be stopped. Towards that end, he has vowed to “spend whatever is needed” to end legalized Internet gambling in the USA.
This has brought with it cries of hypocrisy from Sheldon Adelson’s critics, who suggest the billionaire accepts gambling addicts into his land-based casinos. The Las Vegas Sands Corporation owns the largest global gambling network, which includes the largest casino in Macau: the Las Vegas Sands Casino in Macau, China. With Macau now the gambling capital of the world, this makes the Sands Casino the primary destination for casino gambling on the planet.
