Stannard/Leesville LA Stations Hacked by CryptoWall
| RADIO ONLINE | Wednesday, October 22, 2014 |
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Stannard Broadcasting/Leesville, LA, found themselves at the mercy of hackers last Thursday (October 16) when the computers for Country KVVP-FM (Today's Country 105.7), Rock KROK-FM and AC KUMX-FM were victims of what appears to be the "CryptoWall Virus." A key word to unlock the virus was offered by the hackers in exchange for $500 in the Internet currency bitcoin. The stations were still running Windows XP allowing hackers easy access. Stannard's owner is advising anyone still running XP to upgrade.
"Stannard Broadcasting Inc. is working to correct problems associated with a virus that affected its data server," the company said in a statement. "A Trojan virus had been executed on a computer in the station's network on October 16 that encrypted the station's database audio files in the server."
News Director Elona Weston told Radio World, "the station's small staff worked through the weekend dealing with the consequences of this attack." "It was mayhem for a little bit," she said, "with a substantial amount of audio data missing or inaccessible. Complicating things, one of the stations has been in the process of installing a new transmitter."
GM Doug Stannard also to Radio World in an e-mail, "Two stations have had their music library compromised in that there is still missing audio and all the data strings are not complete. Each day there are more elements compromised. Each day there are additional files tapped by the hackers. So, each day is a new set of problems."
