Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the largest owners of local television stations in the United States, said Monday that it is the victim of a ransomware cyberattack that hurt its news broadcasts and sports programming.
It’s not clear who attacked or why, but it resulted in news shows and sports programming, including NFL games, being off the air on Sunday and Monday across Sinclair’s 184 local TV stations in 86 markets.
“The event has caused — and may continue to cause — disruption to parts of the Company’s business, including certain aspects of its provision of local advertisements by its local broadcast stations on behalf of its customers,” Sinclair said in a statement.
A series of massive attacks on the computer systems of the federal government, the Colonial Pipeline, and the meat producer JBS has brought mainstream awareness to the need for increased cybersecurity protections within governments and businesses.
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The company said it has hired a cybersecurity forensic firm, which is still conducting an investigation, and engaged other incident response professionals. The television giant also notified law enforcement and other government agencies of the incident.
“The Company identified that certain servers and workstations in its environment were encrypted with ransomware, and that certain office and operational networks were disrupted. Data also was taken from the Company’s network,” Sinclair added.
The Biden administration and Congress have tried to tackle the growing problem of ransomware with relevant executive orders and new legislation.
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The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed eight bipartisan bills in July to better equip the government and businesses with tools to handle the recent explosion in ransomware attacks.
