Cox Media Group suffers cyber attack
Live feeds on TV and radio stations go offline during incident
Cox Media Group appeared to be struggling with a ransomware attack on Thursday after many of its live streams went down.
Sources within the company told cyber security news site The Record that they had been ordered to shut down all of their computers to stop the problem from spreading. Live streams from the company's TV and radio stations also went down as the company reportedly had to suspend some live programming.
Some employee tweets yesterday apologizing for feeds being down were unavailable today. However, a tweet from streaming TV operation Hulu reporting issues with feeds from Cox-owned properties was still viewable this morning.
Cox is a large US media conglomerate, comprising 54 radio stations in 10 markets and 33 TV stations in 20 markets. It also operates the conservative news site rare.us, which appears to be unaffected.
Live feeds still appeared to be down on some Cox-owned radio sites, including WHIO 1290 this morning.
Sources reportedly described the incident as a ransomware attack to The Record. The cyber event comes on the heels of unrelated attacks on large meat producer JBS and the Colonial Pipeline. The latter disrupted gasoline supplies in some parts of the US.
RELATED RESOURCE
The US has recently increased its ransomware attacks scrutiny as they begin to pose a more visible national security threat.
On Thursday, National Security Council official Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, sent an open letter to US businesses urging them to be more resilient after the JBS and Colonial attacks. The letter laid out a series of protective steps, including backing up data, segmenting their networks, and maintaining an incident response plan.
The Department of Justice also sent internal guidance yesterday elevating ransomware attack investigations to a similar priority level as terrorism, reported Reuters.
-
Tomorrow's fraud techniquesITPro Podcast Leaders need to proactive as attackers launch more consistent, sophisticated attacks
-
Met Office hails huge efficiency gains in first year of cloud supercomputing with Microsoft AzureNews In moving to the cloud, the Met Office has bolstered operational resilience and helped to deliver more accurate forecasts
-
The rise of teen hackers ‘makes for a good headline’, but cyber crime activities peak later in lifeNews With family responsibilities and mortgages to pay, it's not teenagers dishing out malware or carrying out cyber extortion
-
Ransomware gangs are using employee monitoring software as a springboard for cyber attacksNews Two attempted attacks aimed to exploit Net Monitor for Employees Professional and SimpleHelp
-
Ransomware gangs are sharing virtual machines to wage cyber attacks on the cheap – but it could be their undoingNews Thousands of attacker servers all had the same autogenerated Windows hostnames, according to Sophos
-
Google issues warning over ShinyHunters-branded vishing campaignsNews Related groups are stealing data through voice phishing and fake credential harvesting websites
-
The FBI has seized the RAMP hacking forum, but will the takedown stick? History tells us otherwiseNews Billing itself as the “only place ransomware allowed", RAMP catered mainly for Russian-speaking cyber criminals
-
Everything we know so far about the Nike data breachNews Hackers behind the WorldLeaks ransomware group claim to have accessed sensitive corporate data
-
There’s a dangerous new ransomware variant on the block – and cyber experts warn it’s flying under the radarNews The new DeadLock ransomware family is taking off in the wild, researchers warn
-
Hacker offering US engineering firm data online after alleged breachNews Data relating to Tampa Electric Company, Duke Energy Florida, and American Electric Power was allegedly stolen
