‘Integrity of our games is the top priority;’ Ohio Lottery gives update on cybersecurity incident

Ohio Lottery officials are providing an update after experiencing a “cybersecurity incident” on Christmas Eve.

As News Center 7 reported Wednesday, the incident impacted some of the Ohio Lottery’s “internal applications.”

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“While the cybersecurity incident investigation is on-going, the State wants to reiterate that if any consumer data was compromised, it will take all measures to assist with credit monitoring to protect Ohioans,” officials wrote on Thursday. “We will notify all known affected individuals as quickly as possible and in accordance with applicable laws.”

Officials said the incident didn’t involve Ohio Lottery games of the systems on which the Lottery operates.

“The integrity of our games is the top priority, and it is safe to continue to purchase tickets,” officials said.

As reported on News Center 7 at 5:30, Michael Sliger, the owner of Bee-Gee’s Market in Kettering, says he’s never seen anything like this before.

“I don’t think there’s been anything at least to my understanding. I don’t think there’s been anything to this scale up until now,” Sliger said.

Despite the incident, Bee-Gees is still seeing a consistent amount of people coming in to play.

“We have the occasional people that come in wanting to cash in a larger amount. We’re a super retailer so we can cash prizes larger than other typical retailers can but unfortunately, that part of the system is temporarily shut down right now,” he said.

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Winning tickets over $599 can still be mailed to the Ohio Lottery Central Office.

Mackenzie Bertke, of Beavercreek, told News Center 7′s Taylor Robertson that she’s worried about the attack. This is because her dad plays the lottery often.

“It’s scary, like identity theft is a really big threat and that’s something that nobody wants to go through,” she said.

The Ohio Lottery is working to restore all cashing options in the near future.

More information and updates on the security incident can be found here.

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