Ransomware removal reporters have found that the radio station in San Francisco, KQED is still recovering from the aftermath of the cyber invasion. The attack originally occurred on 15 June 2018. However, a month has passed and several systems of the radio station are still not operational.
An air of skepticism has surrounded the station as a senior editor in the radio station was quoted as saying “It’s like we’ve been bombed back to 20 years ago, technology-wise.”
After the early days of the attack, the station was in dire straits as ransomware removal analysts believe the scope of the damage to be of major proportions. The attack ranged from the deletion of the prerecorded segments to the shutting down of the email server in the station. Moreover, the online broadcast was unable to air for more than half the day’s duration. Fortunately, the FM broadcast could not be affected. However, the station’s Wi-Fi system was inoperable for a few days.
While the station was working on the systems’ ransomware removal and restoration, the staff was a victim of the circumstances. The staff had to indulge in manual processes for the distribution of scripts and thus productivity decreased. The station’s broadcasters were forced to utilize stopwatches to deal with the timing of their segments and have sorely missed the functionalities of their offline content management systems.
The cybercriminal group associated with the ransomware was difficult to communicate with. The ransom asked for the individually encrypted files is said to be in thousands of dollars. Hence, the total ransom for the ransomware was estimated to be in the millions. Recent reports indicate that the station’s management has so far refused the demands of the cybercriminal groups.
For the time being, the office’s personnel have been tasked to work alongside the affected PCs. The exact name of the ransomware has not been revealed yet, however it has been confirmed that it is not the Petya Ransomware.
