Happened here in las vegas when englishspeaking hackers teamed up with elite russian hackers. It may be just the beginning. How many people are involved . Theres thousands of people involved at this point. Did people try to kill you . Yes. Author Salman Rushdie has been a marked man for nearly half his life. And in 2022, a knifewielding attacker almost killed him. This is his First Television interview. One of the surgeons who had saved my life said to me he said, first you were really unlucky, and then you were really lucky. I said, whats the lucky part . And he said, well, the lucky part is the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill a man with a knife. This is a tasmasian tiger, or was a tasmasian tiger. Most scientists believe the apex predator to be extinct. But like big foot and the loch ness monster, plenty of people believe otherwise, that this tiger is still roaming this beautiful island. And then all of a sudden there was a mighty howl like this. 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This past september, one of the most pernicious Ransomware Attacks in history was unleashed on mgm resorts, costing the hotel and casino giant more than 100 million. It disrupted operations at a dozen of the most renowned gaming palaces on the Las Vegas Strip mgm grand, aria, mandalay bay, new yorknew york, the bellagio. Anthony curtis is a las vegas fixture. Hes so good at counting cards, hes been banned from card games here. He now publishes the las vegas adviser, a monthly newsletter on all things vegas. Incredibly, when it happened i was in an mgm property, and it happened while we were having dinner, and there just began to be a rumbling that something was going on. When i went down into the casino, i could see then that slot machines were sitting dark. People were scrambling around. The shutdown was starting to take effect. Reporter across the vegas strip, thousands of slot machines suddenly stopped paying out. So all of a sudden now, people are going, how do i get moip my money . Whats wrong . The people were sitting there waiting and couldnt get paid. Were they angry . They were getting angry, yeah. And this was just the tip of the iceberg. Reporter elevators were malfunctioning. Parking gates froze. Digital door keys wouldnt work. As computers went down, reservations locked up and lines backed up at the front desks. Anything that required technology was was not working. Sounds like chaos. Nobody knew what to do, and including the employees. The employees just had to, you know, beg forgiveness and patience. Look, its corporate terrorism at its finest. Reporter the company declined our interview request, but at a conference a month after the hack, mgms ceo admitted the disruptions were devastating. For the next four or five days, with 36,000 hotel rooms and some regional properties, we were completely in the dark. Reporter the hackers demanded 30 million to unlock mgms data. The company refused, but they still paid a price 100 million in lost revenue and millions more to rebuild their servers. So how did the intruders get in . Through a technique of deception and manipulation called social engineering. First, hackers zeroed in on an employee, gathering information from the dark web and open sources like linkedin. Next, a smoothtalking hacker impersonating the employee called the mgm tech help desk and convinced them to reset his password. With that, the hacker was inside mgms computers and unleashed the destructive malware. Anthony curtis says it was the cyber criminals version of an oceans 11 heist. Theyre doing it the oldfashioned way. I mean theyre doing it the new way but with the Old Fashioned gold. They want to get the money. What do you make of that . I dont want to be too glowing like i like these guys because theyre just crooks, right . But these hackers were able to turn the tables. The casinos have their they have their systems. They have their protections. They have their experts. They have their security. These guys are better. Reporter later, mgms biggest competitor, caesars, admitted it also suffered a social engineering attack around the same time, suspected by the same group. But caesars paid a ransom, reportedly 15 million, and suffered no disruptions. From an fbi perspective, our position is we recommend a ransom not be paid, but we understand its a business decision during a time of crisis. Reporter Bryan Vorndran is head of the fbis cyber division. He told us Ransomware Attacks have grown increasingly brazen. Any way you look at the numbers, its a problem for the Global Economy and for the u. S. Economy and for the security of the united states. Theres estimates that global losses exceed 1 billion u. S. Per year. Have you made any arrests in the las vegas cases . Were not going to talk about specific cases or specific companies. Reporter but he did point us toward the prime suspect. When we talk about the actors behind some of the more recent Ransomware Attacks, the name thats generally raised is scattered spider, and thats a criminal group that we have a lot of attention on because of the havoc theyre wreaking across the united states. Reporter scattered spider is what the fbi calls a loosekit web of predominantly native englishspeaking hackers respond for the casino hacks and dozens more. Their specialty is social engineering. Part of their success is because they are fluent in western culture. They know how our society works. They know what to say to get someone to do something. Reporter Allison Nixon is chief Research Officer at unit 221b, a Cybersecurity Firm that focuses on englishspeaking cyber criminals. She says scattered spider is just one of many illicit hacking groups, all part of a sprawling collection of online criminals calling themselves the community or the com. The com is a subculture. It is specifically an englishspeaking youth subculture that has arisen in the past few years. Its very new, but its surprisingly disruptive. Reporter members of the com have hacked into Companies Like microsoft, nvidia, and electronic arts. How many people are involved . Years ago, it was maybe a few hundred people. But since 2018, the population has exploded because of the money coming into these groups. And theres thousands of people involved at this point. How are they connected . They connect over the internet, social spaces where people hang out, gaming servers. Its almost analogous to like maybe the back alley where the bad kids hang out but on the internet. How old are we talking about . Males under the age of 25. Under 25 down to how young . Like 13, 14. Involved in pulling off major crimes . Yeah. Reporter members communicate and post pictures on messaging apps like telegram. Their chatter, a toxic stew of racism, sexism, boasting about the money theyve scammed and how menacing they are. There are these toxic online spaces where young people can socialize and mingle with criminals and gang members. And the end result of all of this is this online subculture has formed that glorifies crime, that measures ones personal worth by how much harm they can cause the world. Reporter scattered spider is one of the most sophisticated offshoots of the com. Their criminal exploits caught the attention of Cybersecurity Companies and other hackers, including the most notorious russian ransomware gang, blackcat. They saw the young native englishspeaking westerners as a force multiplier. Both claimed credit for the mgm attack. Historically speaking, russian cyber criminals did not like working with western cyber criminals. There was not only a language barrier, but also they kind of looked down on them and viewed them as unprofessional. Reporter the russian and western hackers met in the shadowy corners of the dark web and now are powerful partners in crime. Scattered spider uses its english and social engineering skills to break into western companies networks. Blackcat provides its experience and its malware used in some of the most shocking Ransomware Attacks. Including the 2021 attack on Colonial Pipeline, which caused gas shortages up and down the east coast, and this years attack on unitedhealth group, which disrupted pharmacies nationwide. The state department is offering a 15 million reward for information on russias black cat. This is blackcats data leak site. Reporter jon dimaggio, a former analyst at the National Security agency, now investigates ransomware as chief security strategist for the Cybersecurity Company analyst one. So theres a term. Its called ransomware as a service thats been given to the structure and the format of these gangs. Reporter dimaggio says ransomware as a service has taken the crime to a new level. The long established russian gangs like blackcat offer their services, malware, experienced negotiating ransoms to affiliates like scattered spider. When the victim pays an extortion, the profit that comes from it is shared amongst those criminals. Reporter the most successful russian gangs are run like legitimate companies with easy to navigate online platforms, 24hour service desks, even Human Resources to Hire Software developers. There are people that specialize in developing malware and ransomware, and theyre in very high demand. You said youve gotten to know some of these people. Yes. Are they mostly young men . The leadership are, you know, people in their 40s, late 30s. Theyre people that have got experience, the people that have a financial background. Reporter dimaggio says the russian government provides a safe haven for ransomware gangs. As long as they dont target, you know, an organization that falls within russia or the former soviet state, they dont get prosecuted. Its not considered a crime. Its not considered a crime to attack american businesses . Its crazy, right . Thats thats how it works, though. So its like they operate with impunity. 100 . Thats the whole reason why this is such a popular crime. Reporter russian ransomware has become such a threat, the elite Cyber Warriors at the National Security agency have joined the fight. Before retiring last month, rob joyce was nsas director of cybersecurity. He told us the Colonial Pipeline attack was a wakeup call. It caused us to step back and decide that we had to put more resources into this foreign threat. So one of the things nsa has, we have hackers, and it really at times takes a hacker to defeat a hacker. Thats the value nsa can bring, is we can identify people, specific people, involved in some of these activities. Reporter the nsa helped identify the russian hacker responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack. And in january 2022, after months of negotiations, russia arrested him and other accomplices. But five weeks later, it all came undone. Following the ukraine invasion, those people were let out of jail. So theyre back in business . Yes, sir. Reporter and now theyve teamed up with the young native English Speakers of scattered spider. The fbis Bryan Vorndran calls it an evolution of cyber crime. So in the case of scattered spider, is it powerful that they are with blackcat . Of course. I think that its important to know that we are against a very capable set of adversaries. Theyre very good at their work. Were also very good at our work. Reporter in january, the bureau arrested a 19yearold from florida, noah urban, charged with stealing cryptocurrency. Hes pleaded not guilty. Cyber investigators have tied him to scattered spider, but so far not to the casino heists. The scattered spider hackers who did pull off the attack are still online, hiding in plain sight in unholy alliance with russians. Allison nixon calls las vegas a harbinger. The level of cyber crime has risen to the point where it feels overwhelming, and every year it gets worse. And it feels like as defenders, were its almost like were winning every battle and losing the war. Fisher Investments at Fisher Investments we may look like other money managers, but were different. other money manager how so . Fisher Investments were a fiduciary, obligated to act in our client best interest. Fisher Investments so we dont sell any commissionbased products. other money manager then how do you make money . Fisher Investments we have a simple management fee, structured so we do better when our clients do better. other money manager your clients really come first then, huh . Fisher Investments yes. 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Viking voted worlds best by both travel leisure and conde nast traveler. Learn more at viking. Com. congested man sniffles bring on the blooms. Grab kleenex® Salman Rushdie has been a marked man for nearly half his life. In 1989, irans leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, declared his novel, the satanic verses, blasphemous, an insult to islam, and called for the indianborn writers assassination. Rushdie went into hiding with around the clock Police Protection for ten years. He eventually moved to the u. S. And thought he was safe. But in august 2022, as he was about to speak at a Literary Festival in chautauqua, new york, Salman Rushdie was attacked by a muslim man with a life. Rushdie, who is now 76, lost his right eye and came close to dying. Hes come to terms with the attempt on his life by writing a book about it called simply knife, which comes out tuesday. This is his First Television interview since the attack. You had had a dream two days, i think it was, before the attack. What was the dream . I kind of had a premonition. I mean i had a dream of being attacked in an amphitheater. But it was a kind of roman empire dream, as if i was in the colosseum, and it was just somebody with a spear stabbin