Paravel Systems Technical Support Advisory - Cryptolocker/CryptoWall 21 October 2014
********* We have received reports that a number of radio stations have recently had their automation play out systems targeted by an online malware known variously as ‘Cryptolocker’ or ‘Cryptowall’, resulting in significant damage to those systems and consequent station downtime. We have also received questions from users of the Rivendell Radio Automation System regarding Rivendell’s vulnerability to such attacks. Rivendell runs on the Linux operating system, and as such is fundamentally immune to all malware attacks (including CryptoLocker and CryptoWall) that target and execute on the Windows(tm) operating system. This means that all applications and data directly managed by Rivendell (the application modules, audio library, logs and associated data) are not at risk from these classes of malware. Rivendell users need take no action beyond the usual standards of good operating practice. However, it is a practice at some sites also to create data shares on Rivendell hardware that are accessible by one or more Windows systems. Such shares are commonly used for staging audio for import, transferring traffic or music log data and for other “auxiliary” tasks. Inasmuch as the auxiliary data in these shares is accessible to Windows, any data stored in these shares (and only this data) is potentially at risk should a connected Windows machine become victim of a malware attack. Such an attack would have no impact on the operation of the Rivendell software, but could render any auxiliary data in these Windows shares unusable. We recommend thoroughly checking any Windows machines that have access to these auxiliary shares to confirm that all available safeguards (Windows software updates, antivirus software, anti-malware software and firewalls) are properly configured and up to date to best minimize the risk to the Windows machines. ********* Paravel Systems Technical Support Team _______________________________________________ Rivendell-dev mailing list [email protected] http://caspian.paravelsystems.com/mailman/listinfo/rivendell-dev
