Channel Nine, an Australian free to air TV network, was reportedly hit by a cyber attack that sources confirm could be of ransomware variant. The Melbourne based company that is co-owned by Nine Entertainment Co, confirmed that it cannot host a popular weekend television show titled ‘NRL Sunday Footy Show’ as the digital attack has impacted the broadcast services of Channel Nine content deeply.
Although no official statement was released in this regard, senior management of Channel 9 TV Channel has informed its staff that the disruption could have been caused by a malicious cyber attack.
The broadcast of the regular news bulletin is being done by an untouched server from one of the channel’s remote offices in Melbourne.
All predetermined broadcasts such as the National Rugby League Season, the usual 6PM news and evening TV shows such as 60 minutes will be aired as usual- all thanks to an in-house business continuity plan.
Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and The Age Newspapers remained accessible as they operational servers were placed on a separate domain.
Ransomware attack is a kind of malware attack that compromises the data on a server and locks it down from access until a ransom is paid. And according to highly placed sources, Channel Nine cyber attack has all traits that match a ransomware attack.
Whether the management will bow down to the demands of hackers and pay them in cryptocurrency or will recover the data from a data continuity plan is yet to be known.
Note- As per some speculations doing round in some media resources, the cyber attack could have been launched by a hackers group funded by Russian Intelligence as the Channel Nine TV show was about to broadcast an investigation related to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s involvement in chemical assassination in the morning show ‘Under Investigation’ scheduled to be aired between 7 am to 10 am.
