Normally what happens at a public radio station in San Francisco wouldn’t be of much interest here. But this story got me thinking (always a dangerous and rare thing in my case) about what would happen if this took place here.
 
KQED has revealed that it was hit with one of those ransomware attacks more than a month ago. And because management has been refusing to pay the blackmailers,  the station has been limping along for the past 30 days in a kind of Back to the Future mode.
 
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
 
“It’s like we’ve been bombed back to 20 years ago, technology-wise,” said Queena Kim, a senior editor at KQED…
 
Even now, more than a month later, simple tasks once accomplished at the push of a button continue to require manual effort and creative workarounds.
 
To make sure everyone sees a copy of the script for an upcoming broadcast, reporters have to plug one of the still-working computers into an old ink-jet printer, print out copies of the script and drop one off in a box at the center of the newsroom, where everyone can find it.
 
The timing of segments, once done automatically through the newsroom’s content management system, is now done the old fashioned way — with a stopwatch.
 
Even getting in and out of KQED’s buildings has become an ordeal. A new reporter who started just before the hack could not report to work in KQED’s San Jose bureau because she couldn’t get into the building...The company’s network-connected card readers had been deactivated.”
 
I wonder what would happen if they’d been a music format and all their files were suddenly unplayable. This is becoming too common but this is the first time I’ve heard of it taking place at a radio station. I suspect it won’t be the last. Are any Toronto stations ready for something like this? 

Ransomware attack puts KQED in low-tech mode