Federal Group, an Australian casino operator, has been the recent target of cyberattacks. One such event caused the shutdown of gaming machines, resulting in millions of dollars of revenue being lost with additional amounts being spent on recovery costs. The company would not bow to ransom demands to cease the attack, which ended up prolonging the situation and adding to the operator’s existing woes.
Heavy Toll
Federal Group is the owner of Tasmania’s WrestPoint casino in Hobart and Country Club Tasmania casino in Launceston. The operator embarked on the “encryption of many systems” as well as a partial shutdown of its gaming machines and hotel booking system following an attack.
The company’s refusal to respond to the hackers’ransom demands are documented in its 2020/21 financial statement, where Executive General Manager, Daniel Hanna advised that the company had yet to fully quantify the true cost of the cyberattacks, but estimated it to be at least a few million dollars.
He added that the 2020-21 financial year was the Federal Group’s “worst in nearly 20 years” with government-enforced closures and the COVID-19 epidemic affecting revenue.
End of an Era
In addition to its casino interests, Federal Group also has several hotels and hospitality venues within its portfolio. The company additionally holds all of Tasmania’s gaming machine licenses, a monopoly that will soon run its course.
The introduction of a new bill means that from 2023, venue operators will be able to purchase or lease machines from their chosen sources, where they were previously limited to only Federal Group. As a concession, the Tasmanian government has agreed to reduce the Federal Group’s gaming revenue tax at Wrest Point or Country Club Tasmania.
