C.O. radio group Backyard Media falls victim to cyberterrorists, says no to their demands
Rather than pay large sum in bitcoin, they are buying new hardware, music libraries
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- For the past couple of weeks, fans of several Central Oregon radio stations may have heard a slight difference in programming. That’s because Backyard Media fell victim to cyberterrorists.
On November 29th, Backyard Media, formerly known as the Bend Radio Group, which owns a number of popular local radio stations, including KSJJ–102.9, Power 94–94.1, 92/9 and X–100.7, all located on your FM dial, were taken over by who they refer to as “foreign cyber terrorists.”
The radio group’s music catalogs on all stations were taken hostage, with a demand of large sums of bitcoin as payment, to return them. Not only was the station’s music stolen, but the operating systems used to load the music and how the radio personalities communicate with listeners over the airwaves, were all frozen. All stations were knocked off–air.
In addition, Backyard Media’s promotions, contesting and commercials were all compromised through the cyberattack.
The radio company immediately filed a police report and contacted the FBI.
General Manager Andy Hilmes said despite the devastation caused by the cyber terrorists, they refused to succumb to their demands.
“They demanded a large sum of money in bitcoin to be delivered to them through various wires, to which we said ‘no,'" Hilmes said.
"It’s frozen up all of our on–air automation computers, which will effectively force us to buy new hardware, buy new music libraries, and recreate all of our audio commercials and imaging and things of that nature. We're committed to doing that," he said. "We're committed to buying new automation, hardware and software. We're committed to integrating, innovating and upgrading all of our systems, which is what we're doing currently.”
Backyard Media said they took delivery of new hardware Tuesday. They’ve already began the process of building new music libraries, which is how they’re currently playing some music on-air through their limited libraries.
They are still forced to read all of their advertiser’s commercials live on–air, instead of the standard recorded process, but say they are very thankful to their business partners and listeners for sticking with them through this difficult time.
Hilmes has advice for small businesses on cyberattacks: Hire a great IT team that is local and can give you straight answers in layman's terms that you can understand as a small business. Also, make sure that your insurance plans are specific, because they do have exclusions, specific to cyberattacks.
