Rebuilding MGM's IT will be a $100/hour Red Hat sysadmin with strong arms, on long shifts.
Willingness to stack racks with 30 pounds of kit and get a Red Hat Certified System Administrator certification welcomed.
Are you a Red Hat Linux systems administrator? Can you lift 30 pounds (13 kilograms) of equipment in and out of server racks? Are you willing to work 10 hours per day, seven days per week for $100/hour?
Good news: In theory you would be able to help rebuild MGM’s IT infrastructure after a crippling ransomware attack. Bad news: That role appears to have been filled, with Arganteal, an IT consultancy and software provider based out of Texas, no longer accepting applications.
Arganteal had said it “... seeks an onsite Red Hat Linux System Admin ‘RHEL SysAdmin’ in Las Vegas, Nevada for immediate work. This role will be helping the MGM Grand Casino to build its net new IT environment after the recent ransomware hack. Candidates must be willing to work everyday until the new IT environment is fully stood up.”
The job advert on LinkedIn gave a finish date of October 15.
MGM RHEL sysadmin job: Filled?
The RHEL sysadmin role advertised online late last week drew much comment on social media from information security professionals – many of them stunned at the modest pay bracket in the wake of a major incident and the fact that a company was seemingly hiring an “unknown.”
As one network engineer put it: "For that rate, they're going to get inexperienced folks. MGM is losing, what $8m a day?
"They could hire a whole team for that rate and get their services up and running within a few days on a 24 hour rotating shift."
It came after MGM Resorts, which includes the MGM Grand, Aria, Bellagio and other well-known Las Vegas casino and hotel venues, was hit by ransomware in an incident it first acknowledge on September 11.
Two weeks later, MGM has not disclosed the precise extent of the incident or indeed whether data was exposed during it but is now warning customers in an FAQ to “closely monitor” their MGM Rewards Mastercard credit cards for “any unusual or unrecognized charges.”
The RHEL sysadmin being hired to build MGM’s “net new IT environment” should have a minimum of five years’ experience along with “strong knowledge of shell scripting and automation tools (Ansible, Puppet, etc.); familiarity with virtualization technologies (VMware, KVM); excellent troubleshooting and problem-solving skills” and either hold be willing to obtain a “Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) certification” Arganteal said in its advert.
The company also wanted someone with the ability to "lift up to 30 pounds of equipment" and "comfortable working in a data center environment.
Company executives had not responded to a request for comment from The Stack as we published.
No doubt the company would say it has put together a highly skilled team. One RHEL sysadmin meanwhile is clearly going to be dining out on some stories from the inside of this incident for some time...
