Giant Entercom Radio Network Gets Ransomwared

Newer Guy writes: Entercom Communications, one of the USA's largest radio broadcasting companies, has been hit with a ransomware-like incident. It apparently came in from a computer in the programming department and has taken out the company's email system and servers. All their radio stations across the country have been affected. The ransomware people demanded half a million dollars to restore things; Entercom refused to pay.

Pay to Play?

[currently_awake]

Ransomeware is like Terrorism, the more you pay them off the more you get hit. Paying the DaneGeld only gets rid of the Gold, not the Danes.

Re:

[shanen]

I think I'd give you a favorable mod if I ever had a mod point to give. Or maybe not, since it is pretty obvious and the brevity indicates you were merely going for FP.

So is there a solution? I think it requires looking at the motivations, though they are pretty obvious here. At least as regards the criminals. They are making money and want more.

But what about the motivations of the people who created the environment in which this sort of crime can exist, even thrive? Why didn't they design the Internet wit

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

But what about the motivations of the people who created the environment in which this sort of crime can exist, even thrive? Why didn't they design the Internet with more consideration of the economic factors?

Short version - this is not what the internet was designed to do. It just wasn't. Arpanet was pretty much the start, and it wasn't designed for business purposes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

But business took it over, and they have different agendas. And they want to turn a bigger profit every quarter, so they are loathe to implement - or better stated - pay for good security.

And yet, it isn't rocket surgery to secure and if need to - recover from ransomware. And if enough companies do that, th

Re:Pay to Play?

[shanen]

Mostly I agree with you, even to the part about cutting off the money from ransomware. Unfortunately, I think "enough companies" (plus individuals who get victimized) would have to be infinitesimally small because the marginal costs of the attacks are so small. In the case of the pump-and-dump stock scams, the spam actually did "go away" because they were able to attack the problem from the outside, at the level of the brokerages where real money from the pockets of known people had to change hands.

However I want to emphasize that I think the academics and military people driving the design decisions were simply too detached from the money side, and that's why they didn't give sufficient thought to potential abuse. In many ways, it now looks like the Internet was designed to be abused. It's sort of amusing that their reasons for detachment are utterly different. Academics don't like to worry about money, especially if they have tenure. Meanwhile, many of the military folks are focused on victory at any cost, while others are focused on getting the most bang for the bucks available.

Re:

[DRJlaw]

On the other hand you had the academics, who never cared much about such trivialities as money and possible abuses of excessively free speech.

I don't think that they imagined that people like yourself [slashdot.org] would ever invest the time to post the sort of abuse that you do.

Public masturbation of 946416

[shanen]

Z^-1

Re:Sexual assault by Shannon Jacobs

[DRJlaw]

Another sexual assault by Shannon Jacobs [quoracdn.net]. The man certainly plays down to his role.

Public masturbation of 946416

[shanen]

Z^-2

There's a bit of irony here

[Solandri]

Musicians need to pay the ransom if they want to have their songs played on the radio stations owned by these conglomerates. As with ransomware, the best solution is if nobody pays the ransom. But the larger music labels saw it as a tool to wield control over musicians. So they pay to have the songs of musicians they've signed (and only their songs) played on the radio, for a huge exclusive publicity boost.

Re:

[sabt-pestnu]

"pay to play"? You sure that payola [wikipedia.org] has returned? Or is it more symbiotic than that?

It's Happening

[Ryzilynt]

"While it may be cheaper and easier to pay the ransom, the company's decision not to would be a good one because it could use the money to improve the security of its network and prevent future cyber attacks."

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And from the bottom of my heart I wish you well.

Disclaimer off topic:
And just look at that sentence structure. WOW.

Re:

[Barny]

Yeah, came to say that.

How long before this is turned into a protection racket by these ransomers?

Re:

[charlie merritt]

Yea, I came to say that also.

>>Entercom refused to pay

I'm about to look y'all up for the first time.
Entercom

good job

[astrofurter]

If ransomware attackers can stick to targeting giant corporations that should never have been allowed to merge into existence, then I say good for them.