Curaçao gaming authority experienced unauthorized access to their portal

[uchegod-21]

I stumbled upon this news today, which was made about 5 days ago, but I have a question regarding this. Curaçao is a gaming licensing authority. What are the hackers targeting to get from such place, licensed casino's details, or the are more data saved in their database other than what the casinos give to them as part of regulatory requirements as I believe money can't be kept in their online portal.

https://gamingcontrol.spin-cdn.com/media/general_publications/20260917_press_release_cga_17092026.pdf

If only you know what these criminals gain from laying hands on confidential information. The casino database has alot of information that can be used to generate money for the scammers. Ranging from getting the details of high profile gamblers that can be specifically targeted for attack, to impersonating and sending scam messages and phishing links to gamblers.

Every form of unauthorised access to private data is a threat, therefore should not be taken lightly because money wasn't lost yet. Something else more important than money may have been stolen.

[Hispo]

...
I wonder what is being done about this, because for a license agency to be hacked is way worse than a casino or the customers to be hacked.

Actually, it depends... When hackers target casinos, they mostly aim to empty the hot wallets of those casinos they are attacking and also get personal information (KYC information) of all gamblers within that casino, so they can launch some fishing campaign in the future.

In this case, even though the hack was successful, hackers did not empty any wallet, they just managed to collect a lot of information about registered casinos. Though, I don't have any doubt those hackers will try to use that information to get some money in the near future.

[Julien_Olynpic]

It's been written here many times that cybercriminals may target confidential data from many offshore casinos, which can be used for blackmail. I'd also add that hackers don't always aim to blackmail and sell confidential data. Sometimes, these are so-called "white hat" hackers whose goal is to expose vulnerabilities in website security—in this case, the website of regulators. This can reveal that confidential data is being improperly stored.

[fullfitlarry]

Everything that a hacker can get is a gold mine for them. Specially in this kind of industry, whenever they got the names of the owner of the casino let's say, they can used it to blackmail them.

So for sure, they casino owners doesn't like what they got here, they need to be very careful now. As their confidential data is in the hands of the criminals and it could trigger an avalanche on online and offline attacks to them.

[Die_empty]

It's been written here many times that cybercriminals may target confidential data from many offshore casinos, which can be used for blackmail. I'd also add that hackers don't always aim to blackmail and sell confidential data. Sometimes, these are so-called "white hat" hackers whose goal is to expose vulnerabilities in website security—in this case, the website of regulators. This can reveal that confidential data is being improperly stored.

After the Coldcard wallet exploit, a group of white-hat volunteers called the Bitcoin Red Team conducted a massive audit of open-source infrastructure. They discovered many vulnerabilities that were reported to the affected projects. I believe the Curaçao hacks were carried out by a black-hat hacker because the affected organization discovered the exploit. If it were not for financial gains, the hackers would have contacted Curaçao, informing them of their discoveries.

Nevertheless, these are just speculations because the real reason for the exploits will become obvious when they start asking for ransom or selling the information on dark web platforms.

[Outhue]

I stumbled upon this news today, which was made about 5 days ago, but I have a question regarding this. Curaçao is a gaming licensing authority. What are the hackers targeting to get from such place, licensed casino's details, or the are more data saved in their database other than what the casinos give to them as part of regulatory requirements as I believe money can't be kept in their online portal.

https://gamingcontrol.spin-cdn.com/media/general_publications/20260917_press_release_cga_17092026.pdf

I am not a scammer but I already knew one or two things that a hacker can use these files for, how about using it to confuse a online casino that they can get licensed through them with affordable amount of money? How about blackmailing online casino? How about trying to extort money from startup online casinos?

Hackers don't attack something that won't be useful for them, just because they aren't banks doesn't mean that those certificates, stamps and signatures can't fetch good amount of money if they use them right, if hackers need something they are definitely going after it.

[Emjay24]

They can use this data to blackmail casino owner or sell it to rivals & law enforcement agency on dark web for $$

The blackmail can work if the casino owner has some dirties tied to their real identity and these big players always do. I believe the higher risk here is having unreal legitimate access to partners, third-party clients or even casino staffs to scam them, while they think they're dealing with the real person, being in possession of real IDs, it will take a tight confirmation channels to identify that their acts are fraudulent. Their clients or other linked companies can be a candidate for phishing scams.

I think these casino owners who ever submitted such IDs should find a way to invalidate all those IDs they submitted and get a new one for a start and change whatever is changeable in order to limit the validity and usage of these leaked credentials.

[Ishicryptic]

Everything that a hacker can get is a gold mine for them. Specially in this kind of industry, whenever they got the names of the owner of the casino let's say, they can used it to blackmail them.

So for sure, they casino owners doesn't like what they got here, they need to be very careful now. As their confidential data is in the hands of the criminals and it could trigger an avalanche on online and offline attacks to them.

A hacker cannot go through the trouble of trespassing into an unauthorized portal for the sake of having a thrill, surely they must have seen the potential of a gold mine where they will extract private information to blackmail casino owners. It has to be because I'm sure that it's not about hacking money since Curacao is not a casino or an exchange, this shows that it's not only platforms that are into money transactions that should beef up their security, some information are as valuable as money. Security must be a top priority for online platforms so that those whom they hold their personal information will be rest assured because hackers are getting more sophisticated everyday.

[leea-1334]

Most average user tend to believe that simply because they have submitted their KYC to reputable casino, the company is safeguarding their data with military grade security.

I used to think only old people would trust people like Facebook, but even young working professionals so happy to upload all their personal family photos and names and even docs on Linkedin, the world seems to be more trusting of sites and social media now,,, despite knowing more and more how evil they are. I will never get it 

And how poorly most systems and databases storing our information is.

Or actually just willing to sell it. Poor security is one thing but evil plans for it is another thing and I am afraid corporations are only evil now.

[knowngunman]

I stumbled upon this news today, which was made about 5 days ago, but I have a question regarding this. Curaçao is a gaming licensing authority. What are the hackers targeting to get from such place, licensed casino's details, or the are more data saved in their database other than what the casinos give to them as part of regulatory requirements as I believe money can't be kept in their online portal.

https://gamingcontrol.spin-cdn.com/media/general_publications/20260917_press_release_cga_17092026.pdf

I did a quick research about this but I couldn't believe what I saw. The unauthorised access occurred since Dec last year but was detected this month. That's roughly about nine good months. The hackers or whatever they are called create account under a false identity and had access to sensitive data for a good nine months freely before the incident was detected.

I don't want to sound rude but it seems the CGA is not serious with their work at all if it really took them this long to detect the unusual activity in their portal. They should have identified and flag this earlier if their technical and operational teams were very serious.

[Antotena]

While money can be a big motivation but that is necessary not the o my goal of hackers. As long as there are valuable information,then it is a target.
Curaçao being a licencing body will hold a lot of sensitive Information regarding various companies. This in itself may not be so important or valuable to you to it is valuable to them and to the hackers. Hacker will definable not waste so much time in things that do not benefit them.
The Information is the "money" and if gotten, they can be sold to other people illegally for huge sum of money. The target may also not casinos records, it may be the Curaçao body itself. Even if it was a portal that got compromised you never can tell the amount of information that has been exposed and how valuable and critical these information are

What we don't know is that access to wealthy people's privacy is like having access to their wealth. Imagine founding out a particular casino belongs to one wealthy man, know most of the details about him and even how he operated, such information can be share to armed robbers and even hackers will want to use the information to steal from such person. It might not be an instant compromising, some hackers can track victims for long until they get what they wanted.

There is no way a hacker will have access to casino information, the owners behind it and not sell it for money. There are people that will want to buy such information, the casino also have people they are competing against that will want such information. If there is corruption going on within that regulation, they migjt even found out with such information. There many things that can be helpful or dangerous if they go outside or to the wrong people depending on who got access to it.

[qwertyup23]

Data hosted on portal of regulator like CGA far more valuable than money for cybercriminal and black hat hackers!
Following introduction of new LOK framework in Curaçao now CGA collects ultimate beneficial owner data from casino operator.

This mean those offshore and anonymous casino who were previously operating by concealing their identities behind shell company. Now they have to submit real name, passport copy, residential address, bank reference letter, document regarding source of wealth to CGA portal.

They can use this data to blackmail casino owner or sell it to rivals & law enforcement agency on dark web for $$

Now this makes much sense- instead of hacking the gambling website to gain the funds, they are targeting the information of KYC casinos in order to sell it in the black market.

I find this very interesting given that KYC casinos are primarily being targeted not for the funds it contains on the website but on the information that they have on their users. I do suspect that these casinos have relatively weak security with regard to the privacy and information of their users, which makes it the perfect target for these scammers.

Everything that a hacker can get is a gold mine for them. Specially in this kind of industry, whenever they got the names of the owner of the casino let's say, they can used it to blackmail them.

So for sure, they casino owners doesn't like what they got here, they need to be very careful now. As their confidential data is in the hands of the criminals and it could trigger an avalanche on online and offline attacks to them.

I agree completely with your statement.

Not only do these hackers get and steal personal information but it can also use it as a form of blackmail in order to get what they want.

Ultimately, almost all hackers have one common goal- to steal something in exchange for cash. Now that they are exploring this field, I suspect that we will be seeing similar reports such as this one in the near future.

[Africolo]

I stumbled upon this news today, which was made about 5 days ago, but I have a question regarding this. Curaçao is a gaming licensing authority. What are the hackers targeting to get from such place, licensed casino's details, or the are more data saved in their database other than what the casinos give to them as part of regulatory requirements as I believe money can't be kept in their online portal.

https://gamingcontrol.spin-cdn.com/media/general_publications/20260917_press_release_cga_17092026.pdf

I believe some Individuals are just trying to get a sensitive information from Curacao gaming Authority because it's a gaming license Authority, those hackers behind the unauthorized access to the portal is not looking for money because Curacao won't save money on their portal so they might probably be looking for something else or getting KYCs from other high profile gambling sites that has been licensed by the Authority.

There must be something very reliable that the hackers are looking for and imagine they get access to a very wealthy gamblers KYC registration details that how they will wipe the account and steal all his money, sometimes I don't really blame some gamblers that don't fully register their KYCs online because of this kind of news and they are afraid that their informations might leaked and they will lost valuable amounts of money. The regulatory body should be very careful and do a proper encoding to avoid hackers getting access into the portal.

[CryptSafe]

Now this makes much sense- instead of hacking the gambling website to gain the funds, they are targeting the information of KYC casinos in order to sell it in the black market.

I find this very interesting given that KYC casinos are primarily being targeted not for the funds it contains on the website but on the information that they have on their users. I do suspect that these casinos have relatively weak security with regard to the privacy and information of their users, which makes it the perfect target for these scammers.

Everything that a hacker can get is a gold mine for them. Specially in this kind of industry, whenever they got the names of the owner of the casino let's say, they can used it to blackmail them.

So for sure, they casino owners doesn't like what they got here, they need to be very careful now. As their confidential data is in the hands of the criminals and it could trigger an avalanche on online and offline attacks to them.

I agree completely with your statement.

Not only do these hackers get and steal personal information but it can also use it as a form of blackmail in order to get what they want.

Ultimately, almost all hackers have one common goal- to steal something in exchange for cash. Now that they are exploring this field, I suspect that we will be seeing similar reports such as this one in the near future.

Off course hackers are always out for what would benefit them.  They do not strike without a target, something must be in their plan list before they attempt an attack.
In this case, casino has a lot of things to offer them if they attack, assets, funds, data etc. are all what casino could risk upon any attack on their platform but they lately data breach is what seems to be the latest wave in the space as customer's data are leaked. I wouldn't be surprised most of these attacks on crypto holders are a result of data leaks from casinos and Exchange's.
So far, casinos seems not to take their security and privacy of their members seriously because there has not been any attempt on them but lately seems hackers now discovered their lapses and are using it against them. So the point's you have clearly mentioned are all valid points for which hacker's strike.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Curaçao is a gaming licensing authority. What are the hackers targeting to get from such place
as I believe money can't be kept in their online portal.

From what I read her intention was not to steal money or access any casino fund.
That person who gained access in this particular incident was cybersecurity researcher and she shared those data she obtained with journalist.

She said her intention was to reveal who the real owner of unscrupulous casinos are and how they operate their business. That mean they want to reveal to the world, identity of true owner behind offshore casino and gambling businesses, as well as financial irregularities involved.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

I stumbled upon this news today, which was made about 5 days ago, but I have a question regarding this. Curaçao is a gaming licensing authority. What are the hackers targeting to get from such place, licensed casino's details, or the are more data saved in their database other than what the casinos give to them as part of regulatory requirements as I believe money can't be kept in their online portal.

https://gamingcontrol.spin-cdn.com/media/general_publications/20260917_press_release_cga_17092026.pdf

There are several reasons why an hacker will want to hack a crypto licensing body such as Curaçao, as it involves he/she having the ability to either manipulate the licensing status of whichever crypto casino they like, not minding if the casino is legit or not, with the aim of using it for fraud. While another reason is to be able to have access to the data base of all crypto casinos being regulated by Curaçao, check their respective financial records and likewise have access to users KYC details, which might be used for identity theft. So there are lots of reasons why an individual may want to hack a casino licensing body..