Cyber Terrorism Strikes Major Horse Betting Site Xpressbet
Xpressbet, one of the largest U.S.-based online horse racing betting sites, disclosed this week that they were the latest victim of cyber terrorism.
The attack occurred Saturday August 22, considered the biggest day of the week for horse racing in the United States. It was also the day of the all-important $1 Million TVG Pacific Classic (gr. I) from Delmar.
"You may have experienced issues when visiting Xpressbet on Saturday, August 22," Xpressbet said in a statement issued over the weekend. "Shortly after 7:00PM ET, we were the victim of a sophisticated, malicious Distributed Denial of Service Attack (DDoS), which forced our website and telephone system to go offline for several hours.”
Xpressbet is the latest company to have experienced a cyber attack over the past month. Most notable of all, hackers broke into the online infidelity website Ashley Madison earlier this month, obtaining private and supposedly “secure” information on some 37 million users.
"Xpressbet, along with several other online wagering companies, have received several such attacks over the past few months, the majority of which were mitigated quickly and without interruption to your wagering experience," the company statement continued. "Please know that we are continuing to work with our technology partners to build additional safeguards into our system to prevent future attacks from impacting you and your ability to wager."
Xpressbet assured its customers that credit card information had not been compromised.
Last year, hackers shut down the Las Vegas Sands individual property and headquarters websites for nearly a week. It was later learned that some credit card information had been exposed to the hackers.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
