Las Vegas hit by cyberattack as it hosts CES
Whoever came up with the slogan, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," wasn't prepared for a cyberattack. But that's what happened in the early morning hours on Tuesday, when the team monitoring computers for the City of Las Vegas detected it had been "compromised."
The city, which tweeted about the attack, didn't say which systems were affected or how the attack happened, though the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported it may have been an email attack. But its timing couldn't have been worse.
As the attack was underway, Las Vegas was gearing up for the official start of CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show. The annual event is the largest show of the year for the tech industry and one of the biggest conferences in the US. Last year, CES drew more than 175,000 people and 4,400 exhibiting companies. More than half of Fortune 500 companies participate, including the tech giant Samsung, which this year showed off its 292-inch TV nicknamed The Wall, a robot "companion" called Ballie and new artificial intelligence technology from a subsidiary called Neon, among other things.