French broadcaster TV5Monde is still without Internet and other key IT functions three months after a nation-state hacker took control of its TV channels and hijacked social media accounts. Meanwhile, the data breach costs are mounting up.
TV5Monde was very visibly hacked back in April when the French news channel, which broadcasts ten channels in over 200 countries, was downed by hackers who also gained control of its social media channels.
The broadcaster's CEO has now told SC that IT services won't fully resume until October, some six months after the attack. What's more, the hack is costing the TV station millions of Euros.
Gérôme Billois, senior manager of incident response outfit Solucom, says that the cost is “something that is in line with what we see with other cases”, adding that €4 million to €5 million is “not so surprising” for a company of TV5 Monde's size. He noted cases where, in the event of an APT attack, the breached firm could spend up to €30 million, whilst adding that some banks and industrial control systems were spending €60 million to €80 million on cyber-security over the next three years.
Nonetheless, he says that System Hardening and Vulnerability Management should now be top of the agenda at the firm: “It's a shame that it was the objective of the attacker, but if you pick one good thing it is that board members at many large companies now better understand what happens when hackers came knocking at their door.”
You can read the full article on SC Magazine UK here.
New Net Technologies (NNT) is now part of Netwrix