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TV stations owned by broadcast television company Sinclair Broadcast Group fell over the weekend across the United States, with multiple sources telling TechToSee that a ransomware attack caused the downtime.
Sinclair Broadcast Group is a Fortune 500 media company (with annual revenues of $ 5.9 billion in 2020) and a leading local sports and news provider with several national networks.
Its operations include 185 television stations affiliated with Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC and The CW (including 21 regional sports network brands), with approximately 620 channels in 87 markets across the United States (nearly 40% of all American homes).
This is the second incident to hit Sinclair TV channels in July 2021, when the company asked all Sinclair channels to change passwords “as quickly as possible” following a breach. of security.
Ransomware attack likely behind falling TV channels
Sources told TechToSee that a ransomware attack caused these significant technical issues. Attackers were able to impact numerous TV stations through Sinclair’s Active Directory domain.
TechToSee has also been told that they are shutting down Active Directory services for the domain, causing significant disruption throughout the organization and branches by blocking access to domain resources on the network.
Several company assets were destroyed in the incident, including mail servers, broadcasting and newsroom systems, forcing TV stations to set up Gmail accounts to receive news tips from viewers. and use PowerPoint for TV news graphics.
Another no! #Technology # technical difficulties pic.twitter.com/Lw4sAVTX2X
– Heather Kovar (@ CBS6Heather) October 17, 2021
While regional sports channels were largely unaffected by the incident, some reports indicate that in some US markets local NFL games have been replaced by national sports programs (such as bowling).
Due to the persistent problems, some stations were also forced to switch to live Facebook feeds instead of their regular news broadcasts, while others were forced to completely delay evening news broadcasts [1, 2].
Still struggling with technical difficulties in @ CBS6Albany …. Our 11pm newscast (which starts late after football) will be unconventional. We’re working with handwritten notes, and it will be a bit more conversational. Tune in, and thank you for supporting with us! pic.twitter.com/D620UCD72F
– Leanne DeRosa (@ CBS6Leanne) October 18, 2021
Sinclair TV channels slowly recover
Since reports of falling Sinclair TV stations started coming in, as The Record first reported, some of them have managed to resume broadcasting. However, it is evident that the incident hit them hard.
For example, a source told TechToSee that while KABB is back, they are having issues with weather graphics.
WCHS is also in place, with reports from Fox NewsEdge streaming directly from a full screen browser window, with WPGH and KOKH also having issues displaying their standard graphics.
Others, like WBSF and WCWN, are now broadcasting different programming, switching from CW programming to “Charge!” subchannels.
A handful appear to have been hit harder, such as WPFO, which did a half-hour newscast instead of the usual time, and WTAT and WRGB, which had to cancel their news broadcasts altogether.
A spokesperson for Sinclair was not immediately available for comment when contacted by TechToSee.
