In a brief but noteworthy revelation made by Entercom EVP/CFO Rich Schmaeling during his company’s Q3 earnings call on Friday morning, the company — on the 18th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks — indeed was struck by a “cyberattack.”
He even offered a dollar amount, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, on just how much the breach cost the audio media and content company.
Until now, company executives have only acknowledged “a disruption of some IT systems, including email.” However, various media reports and sources close to Entercom have confirmed that there was widespread havoc across multiple clusters.
How much money was lost due to the cyberattack?
According to Schmaeling, some $400,000 in lost revenue resulted from the IT attack.
A source close to the matter tells RBR+TVBR that the crippling of Entercom’s computer network likely began with an infected computer used by a company’s programming department staffer. The virus then spread through networked computers, moving to multiple departments.
The breach did not originate with and was not caused by music scheduling software, RBR+TVBR confirmed early Wednesday (9/11).
As reported by RadioInsight.com, a $500,000 ransom was presented to Entercom.
E-mail and other types of internal services — including programming tools such as music logs and scheduling — were disrupted across Entercom’s stations.
Urban One, Townsquare Media, Bicoastal Media and Max Media each became victims of a ransomware attack in 2019.
