MGM executive: Cybersecurity team offered to help Boyd after its attack

The chief technology officer at MGM Resorts International reached out to assist Boyd Gaming Corp. when it suffered a cyberattack publicly reported this week.

John Branden Newman was found suitable as an officer Thursday by the Nevada Gaming Commission, which asked for details during the licensing hearing about the attack against Boyd, and as well as the 2023 attack against MGM.

Newman — who oversees a team of 653 employees, including 376 in Nevada — said he reached out to Boyd when its cyberattack was disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

“It’s obviously unfortunate that a lot of the players in the industry and various industries actually are still getting hit by these same types of attacks,” Newman told commissioners. “We did reach out and offer our support. I don’t have a lot of detailed information about it. The current chief information security officer was the one that was doing that coordination with Boyd during that time to offer ours.”

Newman, who previously was an information technology specialist with the Air Force, the Department of Defense and in the private sector before joining MGM, was the company’s chief information security officer when cybercriminals attacked it two years ago.

He confirmed that the teenager who surrendered last week to authorities at the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center and made a court appearance before Family Court Judge Dee Smart Butler Wednesday was the boy alleged to be involved in the MGM attack.

The boy, who is now 17 but was 15 when the attack occurred, was booked on three counts of obtaining and using personal identifying information of another person to harm or impersonate a person; one count of extortion; one count of conspiracy to commit extortion and one count of unlawful acts regarding computers. Prosecutors have moved to try him as an adult.

“It was obviously a very difficult time for us responding to that incident and rebuilding the environment,” Newman told commissioners. “We have put in numerous controls to reduce the risk of any further occurrence of this, and we keep our eye on all the threat intelligence across the industry, including keeping up with the various threat actors that are still hitting people in our industry. We’re still working with the FBI.”

Commission Chairwoman Jennifer Togliatti remarked about how difficult it is to keep up with threats when many of the suspects are so young.

“In order to keep up with it, you have to go to all the proms and all the high schools and all the land,” Togliatti said. “It’s remarkable the age of the folks that are being charged with the acts alleged here. It’s nuts.”

Newman said the young offenders are recruited by criminals.

“It’s very unfortunate,” he said. “They use these people to distance themselves from the actual law enforcement because these players are normally the last mile that are the touch points, but they’re not the brains behind the operation. So we’re continuing to work with them, and we’ve read on a few people from our team to help the FBI go further in as far as we can to get closer to the real people behind the scenes.”

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.