Sinclair Workers Say TV Channels Are In 'Pandemonium' After Ransomware Attack (vice.com) 33
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In the early hours of Sunday morning, hackers took down the corporate servers and systems of Sinclair Broadcast Group, a giant U.S. TV conglomerate that owns or operates more than 600 channels across the country. Days later, inside the company, "it's pandemonium and chaos," as one current employee, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to speak to the press, told Motherboard. Sinclair has released very few details about the attack since it was hacked Sunday. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that the group behind the attack is the infamous Evil Corp., a ransomware gang that is believed to be based in Russia and which was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury department in 2019.
The ransomware attack interfered with several channels' broadcast programming, preventing them from airing ads or NFL games, as reported by The Record, a news site owned by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. It has also left employees confused and wondering what's going on, according to current Sinclair workers. "Whoever did this, they either by accident or by design did a very good job," a current employee said in a phone call, explaining that there are some channels that haven't been able to air commercials since Sunday. "We're really running in the blind [...] you really can't do your job." The employee said that he was working on Sunday and was able to get two emails out to colleagues. "And one of them got it, and the other one didn't," they said.
Employees did not have access to their emails until Tuesday morning, according to the two employees and text messages seen by Motherboard. The office computers, however, are still locked by the company out of precaution, and Sinclair told employees not to log into their corporate VPN, which they usually used to do their jobs. Until Thursday, the company was communicating with employees via text, according to the sources, who shared some of the texts sent by the company. In one of them, they called for an all hands meeting. The meeting, according to the two current employees, was quick and vague. Both sources said that the company should be more transparent with its own employees.
The ransomware attack interfered with several channels' broadcast programming, preventing them from airing ads or NFL games, as reported by The Record, a news site owned by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. It has also left employees confused and wondering what's going on, according to current Sinclair workers. "Whoever did this, they either by accident or by design did a very good job," a current employee said in a phone call, explaining that there are some channels that haven't been able to air commercials since Sunday. "We're really running in the blind [...] you really can't do your job." The employee said that he was working on Sunday and was able to get two emails out to colleagues. "And one of them got it, and the other one didn't," they said.
Employees did not have access to their emails until Tuesday morning, according to the two employees and text messages seen by Motherboard. The office computers, however, are still locked by the company out of precaution, and Sinclair told employees not to log into their corporate VPN, which they usually used to do their jobs. Until Thursday, the company was communicating with employees via text, according to the sources, who shared some of the texts sent by the company. In one of them, they called for an all hands meeting. The meeting, according to the two current employees, was quick and vague. Both sources said that the company should be more transparent with its own employees.
Transparency (Score:5, Insightful)
Both sources said that the company should be more transparent with its own employees.
... as they anonymously leaked information to the public. Yeah, sorry, but that’s exactly why you AREN’T told more.
I’m not saying that there isn’t more information the company could safely share, but they may well be playing it safe and giving little information because they fear making the situation worse by either a) giving information to the attackers or b) causing further media and shareholder frenzy.
But I am saying it’s hard to take the moral high ground on them not giving you information literally as you leak what you’ve got.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The company should be more open with the public, too. All this secrecy bullshit only harms them in the long run
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the public going to do different than what they're doing already? Social-media has raised us on a culture of everyone's business is our business (voyeurs) and we all are experts, social-workers, and justice upholders.
Re: (Score:3)
I do so love adverbial endings. "differently" would be such a pleasure.
different vs differently (Score:2)
In this case though it's arguably alright to use "different".
As in "Let's do something different!" - It does not have to be used as an adverb. You can argue about the sentence structure, sure, but you misunderstand the role of language. Years ago, the more stuff I read about and from linguists the more relaxed I became. Turns out those studying language are far more relaxed about such things.
As so often, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Those who know some rules now take them for religious gospel. I
Re: (Score:2)
Social-media has raised us on a culture of everyone's business is our business (voyeurs) and we all are experts, social-workers, and justice upholders.
Society works best when everyone's business is everyone's business. Get past the village level and now there's all kinds of room for bureaucracy, secrecy, sneaky bullshit, pervasive abuse that some don't believe in even though it's happening because of selection bias. The problem is going to be getting the wealthy under the same kind of scrutiny as everyone else, because there's no stopping the continual erosion of privacy which is enabled by technology. We're going to have to learn to live with it, which m
Re:Transparency (Score:5, Insightful)
The flip side of this is that by not being more open, they are encouraging employees to share questionable information. When a company isn't open with their employees, the employees become reliant on the company "grapevine" which is questionable and unreliable. When employees are forced to rely on unofficial sources, they feel more comfortable using unofficial sources and passing on information to others (whether that be other employees or outside people), because that is the only way to get the information.
Sinclair Isn't About Real News Anyway (Score:2, Insightful)
By any other name or owners, these guys are just a stealth Fox News group [insidesources.com]. So there isn't any real expectation that they will be forthcoming about what is really happening.
Sinclair : TV :: Eddie Lampert : Retail (Score:5, Interesting)
Just as we've seen Eddie Lampert drive Sears and KMart into extinction with his religious and political views, we're watching Sinclair destroy the TV market with theirs. The amount of consolidation that Sinclair has quietly pulled off is teetering into the dangerous realm, and it is difficult to estimate what the future consequences of this - beyond silencing of local voices - could be.
Re:Sinclair : TV :: Eddie Lampert : Retail (Score:4, Insightful)
my thoughts exactly, perhaps this is for the better...
Re: (Score:2)
This is extremely dangerous to our democracy (Score:5, Informative)
Sinclair, eh? (Score:3)
I suppose then that getting hacked with Russian ransomware is extremely dangerous to our democracy [youtube.com].
evil corp ? (Score:4, Interesting)
considering Sinclair Broadcasting is part of the evil corp team, maybe them not being able to broadcast anything is a good thing ?
Re:evil corp ? (Score:4, Interesting)
As I wrote in the prior article on this incident, if there was ever a case that I would be on the side of the hackers this would be it.
LOL, Ads (Score:3)
.... preventing them from airing ads or NFL games ...
But how will people know when to look at their phones?!
Re: (Score:2)
Well ads are how things are paid for, even before the internet was a thing. As for the sports games, have you ever tried to deny a sports fan their drug of choice?
Re: (Score:2)
Well ads are how things are paid for, even before the internet was a thing. As for the sports games, have you ever tried to deny a sports fan their drug of choice?
If you want some hilarity, go watch "Good Night, Good Luck". The movie has a few real commericals from the day in it, one of them being for Kent cigarettes. The actor starts the ad by saying if you're watching this show, Ed Murrow's show, then you are above average in income and intelligence. He then proceeds to explain that you are not easily swayed, which is why you should smoke Kent cigarettes.
Re: (Score:2)
The best time to go to town, or the mall, or anywhere really is during big games.
Sports are amazing because it glues the lowest elements of society to their couches or locks them in arenas.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, there's a rule in nearly all pro sports that if the station that's supposed to show the game can't, it's a forfeit. Then again, Sinclair is mostly in small markets, not the station closest to the stadium usually.
no commercials? (Score:2)
I haven't subscribed to commercial TV for years, it was so completely overrun with commercials it was difficult to enjoy anything.
Since regular tv series nowadays are engineered with runtimes of between 42 and 52 minutes to account for commercials, (and the longer ones with designated "this bit here isn't important to the plot and can be substituted with a couple commercials), I wonder how they're handling all the dead air? Lots of public service announcements?
I doubt the adjusted for cost of content has g
Sinclair is evil (Score:5, Interesting)
Last Week Tonight did a special episode on how Sinclair is an evil organization
https://youtu.be/GvtNyOzGogc [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Turnabout is fair play (Score:2)
Now you finally know how your customers usually feel.
Good and this is why: (Score:3)
Sinclair is a typical toxic "conservative" (which today means fascist religious fanatic, the five or ten remaining "classical" conservatives have no party and no real influence) bullshit pump.
If this was an act of malice, good on whoever did it and may they succeed similarly elsewhere.
If it was incompetence, it's hilarious and the details when they leak should be amusing.
HAHAHA Sending my thoughts and prayers (Score:3)
Couldn't happen to a nicer corporation. Ha ha ha ha ha, sucks to be you.
Sending my thoughts and prayers lol
"Dear all-powerful invisible sky-god who made this happen in the first place, please restore their backups!!!"
Let's Go Brandon! (Score:2)
preventing them from airing ads or NFL games
Yeah, sure buddy.
This is generally happens due to..... (Score:1)
re (Score:1)