The B.C. Lottery Corporation is warning British Columbians with a PlayNow account to update their passwords. This warning comes after criminals attempted to hack the website using stolen passwords.
The BCLC reported detecting a suspiciously high volume of traffic on the gambling and lottery site on July 24. Programmers determined that this traffic was the result of a credential stuffing attack. In this attack, criminals used emails and passwords stolen or leaked from other websites to try to gain access.
The practice is based on the idea that people often use the same email and passwords in different websites.
Today, the BCLC operates PlayNow in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. This is in partnership with Saskatchewan and Manitoba gambling authorities.
Pat Davis, the BCLC president said in a statement that this is a deeply concerning incident and a cautionary tale for everyone with a lot of online accounts. Their investigation remains ongoing, and they have found no evidence that their systems have been compromised, or that player login information was stolen from their systems.
PlayNow said it locked affected accounts once the hacking attempt was detected. It also notified players. They also took measures to block the suspicious traffic.
An investigation is still on-going. Both provincial and federal privacy commissioners have been notified, together with the appropriate gambling regulation authorities and RCMP.
PlayNow account holders are being asked to change their passwords. They are also urged to ensure that their online accounts are not reusing credentials.
Davis said that integrity and security are at the core of their business and their games. They are committed to continuously evaluating and enhancing PlayNow’s security controls. This ongoing effort aims to ensure the safety of their players’ information in the future.
