Hard Rock Hotel & Casino suffered data breach

Restaurants, bars and retailers in the sprawling Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel & Casino experienced a data breach that reportedly lasted seven months before it was discovered last month.

A breach was confirmed by Hard Rock International (HRI), a company that operates separately from the hotel but was nonetheless alerted to the incident.

{mosads}“We have been made aware of a data breach at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, and believe it to be an isolated incident at this time,” an HRI representative said in a statement. “We do not share information or financial technology platforms with this property.”

The breach was first reported late Thursday by CSO, a security news service.

While details remained scarce Friday, the breach appeared to have affected customers at several franchises within the Las Vegas casino complex. The resort regularly hosts thousands of customers.

“This criminal attack was limited to credit or debit card transactions between September 3rd, 2014 and April 2nd, 2015 at restaurant, bar and retail locations at the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas property,” stated a breach notification released late Friday.

The breach did not affect transactions with the hotel or casino, and did not impact every restaurant and retailer in the resort, according to the alert. The hotel is reportedly offering victims of the breach identity protection services through Experian.

The precise nature of the breach and the responsible party were not disclosed.

Hackers continuously target businesses as a way to collect valuable consumer data.

In the massive 2013 cyberattack on Target, hackers believed to be Russian broke into the company’s networks by stealing credentials from a heating and air conditioning vendor that worked at some Target locations. 

The attackers were then able to inject malware in the company’s point-of-sale systems, leading to the theft of data for about 40 million credit and debit cards.

—This post was updated Monday at 10 a.m.