Sinclair radio stopped broadcasting many TV stations, suspected of being attacked by blackmail software

Editor's note

In the near future , Many enterprises around the world have been attacked by blackmail Software . Local time 10 month 18 Japan , Sinclair broadcasting group （Sinclair Broadcast Group） Issued a statement saying , The company was attacked by blackmail software last week , At present, this incident may continue to cause some business interruption of the company .

The following is industrial safety TALK Translated from BleepingComputer The news report of .

source ：BleepingComputer

translate ： Industrial Security TALK

Last weekend, , Sinclair broadcasting group's television stations have stopped broadcasting all over the United States , Multiple sources tell BleepingComputer, The suspension was caused by blackmail software attack .

Sinclair broadcasting group is a company on the list 《 Wealth 》500 Strong media companies （2020 Annual revenue 59 Billion dollars ）, It is also a leading provider of local sports and news programs , It operates a number of national television networks .

Sinclair has 185 Families belong to FOX、ABC、CBS、NBC and The CW TV station （ Include 21 A regional sports network brand ）, In America 87 One market has about 620 Channels , Covering nearly 40% American family .

since 2021 year 7 Since the month , This is the second incident affecting Sinclair's television station . stay 7 After the security intrusion in January , The company asked its television stations “ At the fastest speed ” Change password .

  Blackmail software attack may be the reason behind the suspension

The source told BleepingComputer, Ransomware attacks lead to major technical failures . The attacker used Sinclair's corporate activity Directory （Active Directory） Domain affects a large number of TV stations . The source also revealed that , The attacker shut down the active directory service of Sinclair enterprise domain , Domain resources are inaccessible , This leads to business interruption within the whole enterprise and its subsidiaries .

Sinclair's email server 、 The broadcasting system and the newsroom system were paralyzed by the attack , Television stations were forced to create Gmail Email account to receive news clues provided by the audience , And use PowerPoint Complete the image production of news programs .

Although the regional sports channels are basically not affected , But there are reports that , In some parts of the United States , National Sports Events （ Such as bowling ） Instead of local NFL Game broadcast . As the problem remains to be solved , Some TV stations are forced to give up regular news reports and turn to Facebook live broadcast , Another television station was forced to postpone its evening news program as a whole .

Sinclair's television station is slowly recovering

Since the report of the suspension , Some of the affected television stations have managed to reopen . But obviously , These TV stations have been seriously affected by this incident .

for instance , Even though KABB The broadcast has resumed , But according to sources ,KABB There are still problems in weather forecast images .WCHS It has also been replayed , But formally, it is directly played in the browser window in full screen Fox NewsEdge The news report of ;WPGH and KOKH Nor can we broadcast standard images . Other television stations have now switched to other programmes , Such as WBSF and WCWN Has been broadcast from The CW The program was changed to broadcast “Charge!” The content of the subchannel .

A small number of TV stations seem to have been more seriously affected , Such as WPFO Only half an hour of news coverage , Instead of a regular hour ,WTAT and WRGB Even completely canceled the news coverage .

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