The Weather Channel succumbs to ransomware; goes off air

The Weather Channel went off the air for a brief period after facing an attack of ransomware. The ransomware attack took place last week and took down the channel for almost an hour. Amid severe weather hitting Southeastern parts of the United States, the ransomware attack brought the cable channel down for a while. The Federal Bureau of Investigation came in to investigate the source of the problem and confirmed that it was a ransomware attack. The FBI is currently investigating the incident.

That day, the channel also told that it was experiencing certain technical difficulties, even with its live broadcast. Later, the company tweeted about the technical issues and the cybersecurity breach. The tweet said:  “We experienced issues with this morning’s live broadcast following a malicious software attack on the network. We were able to restore live programming quickly through backup mechanisms.”

The channels apologized for the inconvenience and hoped to solve the issue quickly with federal enforcement. The backup mechanisms have done their job and got the channel on air shortly, which the channel again confirmed with a tweet that promised the latest weather threats.

It still remains unclear what the ransom the attackers were demanding. As a major headache for governmental and private organizations, ransomware mainly demands money from their victims. 2017 saw some of the worst ransomware- the WannaCry, which is believed to have attacked more than 150 countries.