Sinclair Stations Crippled by Hack
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It appears to be a ransomware attack and things getting worse as time goes on.
Yesterday, FTVLive told you that email across the Sinclair stations was down and a number of computers and programs could not be accessed. When we first brought you the story, it appeared that master control at the Sinclair stations was still operating.
But now, sources tell FTVLive that master has also been hit.
“Master Control is being affected by the current cyberattack,” a source tells FTVLive, “They are unable to access their programming servers, meaning they can’t ingest new content to prepare for air. And if the problem continues, they won’t be able to process new programming playlists for the next day, which means that once their playlists run out, they’ll be off the air altogether,” the source added.
We are hearing that phone service is down across a number of stations as well.
Sinclair’s WSTM (Syracuse) late newscast ran without commercials and the breaks were just a sky-cam picture with the lower third saying the news will be back shortly.
The newscast had no graphics and no teleprompter. The weather forecast on WSTM looked like this:
According to texts sent to Sinclair employees, they are being told to inform viewers that they are having “technical difficulties” and not to get into specifics of what is happening.
Sources are telling FTVLive that it appears to be a ransomware attack. You may remember back in June, FTVLive FIRST told you that the Cox run stations had been hit by a ransomware attack. It took Cox weeks to recover and get everything back online.
FTVLive continues to follow this breaking story.
