Finland’s Veikkaus says hundreds of customer accounts hacked

Veikkaus has revealed that it is investigating the hacking of 800 customer accounts.

Finland.- The state-run gambling monopoly Veikkaus, has reported that around 800 customer accounts were subject to suspicious logins last month.

It initially appears that a hacker succeeded in logging in to Veikkaus’ online services by guessing customer usernames and passwords with the help of software. The attacker is believed to have accessed around 800 accounts and locked others due to failed login attempts.

Veikkaus said that none of its data had been compromised and that no irregularities or suspicious gaming activity had been detected on any of the accounts breached.

It added that the hacker had been unsuccessful in transferring money from the accounts thanks to the operator’s authentication measures.

Hannah Kyrki, director of legal and corporate responsibility at Veikkaus, said: “Due to the nature of the attack, we believe that the risk of misuse of the gaming accounts in question and personal data is low.

“So far, we have not detected any unusual events in the game accounts under attack. Naturally, we will continue to monitor the matter more closely.”

Police are now investigating and the customers whose accounts may have been accessed have been informed and advised to change their passwords.

Last month, Veikkaus introduced identity authentication requirements at all of its land-based slots, and from September, it will install loss limit tools.

Meanwhile, the operator has begun negotiating with 830 staff members as it seeks to make 200 redundancies to ensure the continuity of its operations amid a decline in revenue.