1 of 1- RadioActive
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FCC To Broadcasters: Beware Of Increasing Ransomware Attacks
Remember a few months ago when AM740 apparently was the victim of a severe ransomware attack that paralyzed its ability to play music and perform other on-air functions? They aren't the only ones. In a world that used to be filled only by turntables and cart machines, today's modern radio studio is mostly computers and databases - all of which makes them vulnerable to outside attacks.
Which may be why the FCC in the U.S. has now officially issued a warning to radio stations there about the hazards of getting hit by a cyber-attacker looking for a huge payday. And it's issued a series of suggestions to fight back, including better staff training to prevent an attack from penetrating station firewalls, backing up data and patching software regularly.
Times have changed and it's easy to forget radio is now not just mics and a board - it's like a big interconnected computer, with all the hazards that comes with it.
The fact the FCC had to remind radio folks about this shows how often it's been happening. And as 740 discovered, it can be devastating.
FCC Issues Urgent Cyber-Security Alert to Broadcasters
- tdotwriter
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Re: FCC To Broadcasters: Beware Of Increasing Ransomware Attacks
In an ideal world, all such important infrastructure would be secured so as to at least almost always stay ahead of whatever techniques may be employed by hackers and saboteurs. In the real world, security is often either overlooked or insufficiently provided for. Both the public and private sectors have many times been guilty of this. Something(s) that people in charge either were completely ignorant of, didn't sufficiently consider or weren't that worried about are the fundamental root of all failure in our world.
- The Weed
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Re: FCC To Broadcasters: Beware Of Increasing Ransomware Attacks
I use the Home version of Macrium Reflect, this one is for business. They both use Image Guardian, which protects a Macrium Reflect image, so if your Ransomwared, just restore back from the latest image. All that's lost is whatever you did since the last image. Personally, I make an image of my OS and Audio drives nightly, keeping a rolling 5 days of images, or before any update/upgrade/install/uninstall. I can also mount any image and copy off any file or folder I need to bring back that I had deleted before.
I can't understand anyone with critical information or systems that have to be up for business reasons or any reason, not having a security, update and backup strategy. YMMV.
- RadioActive
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Re: FCC To Broadcasters: Beware Of Increasing Ransomware Attacks
Cases in point And it's not just what's on air.
"A broadcaster’s Flexiva transmitter control was accessed over the internet by a malicious actor.
That actor was able to switch the transmitter’s RDS setting from an external encoder to the Flexiva’s built-in encoder, and it was used to project a racial slur over its scrolling program service data."
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Thread Starter- DeepTracks
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Re: FCC To Broadcasters: Beware Of Increasing Ransomware Attacks
RadioActive wrote:
Cases in point And it's not just what's on air.
"A broadcaster’s Flexiva transmitter control was accessed over the internet by a malicious actor.
That actor was able to switch the transmitter’s RDS setting from an external encoder to the Flexiva’s built-in encoder, and it was used to project a racial slur over its scrolling program service data."
I'm thinking the original writer really meant that the system was switched from an internal to an external source - the opposite of what they actually wrote. Semantics aside, there's no limit to the ingenuity of malicious actors.
- Shorty Wave
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Re: FCC To Broadcasters: Beware Of Increasing Ransomware Attacks
Remember a few months ago when AM740 apparently was the victim of a severe ransomware attack that paralyzed its ability to play music and perform other on-air functions?
It has been two months since AM740 was attacked and they still haven’t got everything up and running, limited playlist, no phone-ins and their site is affected in spots still, plus Liz West left to add to it, unrelated but still!