Entercom Officially Mum On Digital Platform Disruption

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Updated at 9:15am Eastern


So far in 2019, Urban One, Townsquare Media and a cluster of stations owned and operated by Virginia-based Max Media each became victims of a ransomware attack.

In the case of Max Media, nearly all of the of the company’s stations in downstate Illinois suffered from the implementation of encryption software making most of its digital files useless. For Townsquare Media, the Shreveport, La., cluster, could not activate its automation triggers for spots and imaging. At Urban One, national radio spots and some Radio One audio streams were impacted by a cyberattack that crippled the company’s internal computing systems at various clusters, forcing staff to rebuild file systems over several weeks. Some $5,000 to $6,000 was spend on recovery efforts, with a negative impact of $1 million placed on Urban One.

Now, Entercom Communications is dealing with its own computer troubles in what appears to be a company-wide ransomware attack.


Correction: An earlier version of this story, distributed Sept. 10, incorrectly cited a source close to the matter who told RBR+TVBR that the crippling of Entercom’s computer network likely began with an infected music scheduling program. The virus was sourced to an infected computer in the programming department, and not a particular software program. We regret the error.


 

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