It appears the Ransomware attack on Cox Media Group, first reported last week, has not yet been rectified. And, the company is not saying a word about it. Even the CMG main website remains down as of Tuesday morning.
We reached out to several executives in the company who did not respond to our request for an update. The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis, where CMG has a Fox affiliate Television station, said “the FBI in Memphis is aware of the matter but would never comment one way or another on the kind of possibility of an investigation.”
A Ransomware attack is when a hacker, usually outside the United States, gains access to company computers, shuts them down, and demands money to return what a company needs to get back online. It’s being reported that this attack on CMG affected 20 markets.
At 4AM this morning this is what happened when we tried to listen to the stream for WDBO in Orlando, WSB in Atlanta, The Eagle 80’s Rock in Dayton and 102.5 The Bone in Tampa. There are multiple reports that Cox managers were told to shut down everything and log out of e-mail to prevent a spread of the issue.
Ransomware attacks have been a major problem for businesses in the united States for years. Back in 2019 Alysa Austin with the Womble Bond Dickinson law firm in Washington, D.C., who has an LL.M. in Cyber and National Security Law wrote this piece for Radio Ink on the topic.
And in September of 2020 cyber security professionals Chris Reczek and Frank McCoy wrote this Managers Guide to Avoiding a Cyber Security Attack for Radio Ink
