Cyber Security Threats in the Media and Broadcasting Industry
Today, most media and broadcasting companies are operating in digitized environments. This means they have to remain online 24/7. These companies are competing against each other to keep their viewers updated with the “latest” and “breaking news” through their websites, and various social media platforms. In such situations, the broadcasters cannot afford to go offline, even for a few seconds. However, going offline, and losing all data is becoming a great concern among broadcasters with 28% admitting having experienced it in a last few years. These numbers may be even higher with the recent cyber attack in April 2017. Who is responsible for these threats? Are there any ways to avoid these cyber threats? Read the post to know more.
Broadcasters Largely Face Cyber Security Threats Initiated by the Following Actors:
- Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups that are helping their sponsoring governments to mend their national image by stealing important broadcasting data from media companies operating in neighboring countries. Most of these threat groups appear to be located in countries like Syria, and other war inflicted zones. This type of data breach is usually conducted to decipher reporting activities of the media company. They want to block stories that might project their sponsoring governments in a bad light.
- Many times, APT groups engage in data breach exchange of monetary benefits. They tie up with indigenous media and broadcasting companies and help them gain competitive advantage with their competitors stolen data regarding distributions, mergers, technology advancements, intellectual property, etc.
- Malvertising has emerged as a big threat in the recent times. Malvertising refers to using online advertising to spread malware, and is often used to target users who visit authentic websites. Today, advertising content is often inserted into reputable websites, malvertising provides enough opportunities to online criminals to attack unsuspecting web users. As the web users may not see the advertisements placed by online criminals due to safety precautions or firewall, still the damage will be done. Most online criminals spread malvertising through news websites. A recent example of an actor targeting a news website is AdGholas, which has induced a critical remote code execution vulnerability in IE.
- Cybercriminals are also targeting the gaming industry by stealing their activation codes, personally identifiable information (PII), in-game valuables, and account credentials.
The above-mentioned are only a few actors, which are identified to cause harm to media and broadcasting companies. However, there are several others who remain unidentified.
Tips to Avoid Cyber Attacks in the Broadcasting Industry
- Document every physical device, and system in your organization. It is very important to keep the inventory of devices updated. The inventory of systems include laptops, desktops, printers, UNIX/Linux servers, Voice-over-IP telephone systems, etc. The inventory should be detailed with information such as owners name, network address, the asset owner, the purpose of the system, etc.
- Maintain an inventory of every software platform and application used by you.
- Decide personnel at all levels including managers, executives, third- party stake holders who have access to these assets.
- Closely monitor the social media accounts of the hacktivists. This will help you understand if your organization stands a threat of any such attack. For detecting activities of hackvists you need to ascertain various tools used by them.
- Regualrly monitor the IE and Flash vulnerabilities to ensure your news site is protected.
- Detect which ransomware types are targeting your industry.
- Invest in high-quality cyber security threats software applications.
All the above-mentioned tips will help broadcasting companies to ensure minimal security level in their systems. In addition to the above-mentioned, you can always seek help of an industry expert.
