Lottery News

A cyber attack on the New Hampshire Lottery knocked its website offline for over a day.

The NH Lottery website (NHLottery.com) was the target of a cyber attack on Thursday, August 25, after lottery authorities decided to take it offline while they worked out security issues.

The Lottery reported that a cyberattack had occurred against its third-party hosting provider at roughly 9:30 am on Friday, August 26.

In a statement to WMUR, lottery officials stated that "our players' security and the integrity of our web platform is our paramount priority." "We have informed the players of this situation, and we will keep the public updated as we learn more," the statement reads.

On Monday, the Lottery issued a new statement that included further information about the situation.

According to the statement, "The attack resulted in the construction of a banner/pop-up intended to persuade visitors to click and download a.zip file."

With the Mega Millions drawing scheduled for that Friday night, the attack happened on the day when sales are generally at their peak. Sales of lottery tickets in shops throughout the state were unaffected.

The Lottery was required to shut down the website in order to reduce the possibility of suffering more harm while addressing security concerns. As of Saturday, August 27 at 1:24 am, the website was back online with "improved security measures," according to the Lottery.

The Lottery said, "We are certain that this incident did not harm any player data or threaten the integrity of our gaming platforms.

If players were inadvertently browsing the website at the time of the cyberattack, the Lottery advises that they take precautions to safeguard themselves.

Visitors to the website who downloaded the.zip file by clicking on the banner or pop-up link should delete it and empty the computer's Trash/Recycle Bin. Anyone who launched or opened any files contained in the.zip file are advised to download and run an antivirus/malware scanner to get rid of any questionable files. AVG Free for Antivirus and Malwarebytes for Malware was recommended by the lottery.

The Lottery further advises players who accessed their accounts between the late evening of Thursday, August 25, and the early morning of Friday, August 26, to change their account passwords and the login credentials for any other websites that share the same username and password. You can find instructions for doing this on the New Hampshire Lottery website.

The Lottery stated that officials are working with their hosting provider, have started an investigation into the event, and will continue to respond to player and partner inquiries as they come up.

So please be careful while accessing such websites and don’t fall prey to malicious information provides on any of them.

Play Safe, Play Responsibly!