RANSOMWARE ATTACK on radio station group

 Watch out!

Hackers About!

Another Ransomware Attack 

on radio station cluster.

Tuesday 19 October 2021

A disturbing report from Seattle this morning that a group of stations have come under sustained cyber attack. The victims are the stations in what has been for many years called the Sinclair Broadcast Group but were sold to Lotus Communications three weeks ago for around $5 million cash plus a further $13 million in 'deals'.  Sinclair have retained the ongoing rights to the KOMO call letters and they will continue with their TV channel of that name. They have around three hundred outlets.

The stations concerned are

News 1000 KOMOSeattle

97.7 KOMO-FM Oakville

97.7 K249DX Redmond,

Hot AC “Star 101.5” KPLZ Seattle 

and 

Conservative Talk 570 KVI Seattle

The attack was RANSOMWARE and manifested to listeners as key stations such as Star 101.5 having intermittent dead air,  songs skipping and no imaging (jingles and recorded liners) between the songs.   On 1000 KOMO, the company's main news outlet,  and on 97.7 KOMO FM,  a long-form talk show was broadcast to replace the station's regular news programmes when the studio IT kit crashed.   The cluster's online streaming for all those stations, plus KVI 570AM  all went down.  The company announced that many of its servers and in studio work stations were encrypted  or infected with ransomeware  and many of their office  networks were disrupted.   

The ransomware attack began to be noticed on Friday but intensified over the weekend.  Ransomware hackers often launch their attacks at the beginnings of weekends in the hope that victims will be short-staffed. In June, the Cox Media Group was also the subject of a ransomware attack that  left many stations unable to use their computers or phones for several days.

RANSOMWARE ATTACKS 

Ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly used to extort money from media companies.  A Trojan is usually fed into the broadcaster's system, often as a  malicious attachment, embedded link in a Phishing email. 

The program then runs a small programme which locks down the operating system. They will offer to call off the attack in return for online e payment - often in Bitcoin, which helps them cover their tracks and makes the payment non trackable.

The best solution is to have your systems always perform regular back ups, and ensure that key staff are able to execute procedures to restore your most vital files. Regular tests that the procedure is working are vital.  Have YOU ran yours this week?

KOMO, KPLZ and KVI are legendary heritage radio stations in America's north west and have previously had massive audiences.