Malicious cyberattack against the M6 Group
On Saturday, October 12, 2019, the M6 group was the victim of a " malicious cyberattack," announced Nicolas de Tavernost.
The group includes the following television channels: M6, W9, Paris-Première, 6ter, Téva, Gulli, Canal J, TiJi, M6 music, M6 boutique, MCM, Série Club, RFM TV, and their replay service 6play. It also includes the radio stations RTL, RTL2, and Fun Radio.
This attack therefore had the potential to greatly impact French television and radio.
Journalists were instructed not to turn on their computers or make calls from their work phones. Their instructions were to use instant messaging on their smartphones to communicate with colleagues.
These blockages suggest that this could bea ransomware attack.
M6, victim of phishing
In its article, Mag It provides details showing that the infection appears to have originated from a previous issue. "The attack apparently began [...] with the compromise of one of the group's user accounts in July via a malicious email." This allegedly allowed several Trojan viruses to spread.
From the morning of Monday, October 14, emergency meetings were held. Each department tried to reassure its teams and communicate the correct procedures.
The M6 group has not provided further details regarding the potential origin of this attack. However, it is continuing to broadcast its programs.
Nevertheless, no one knows how long the group's programs will continue to be broadcast.
As the executives stated: "The rapid and effective intervention of our cybersecurity experts enabled us to continue to ensure the smooth broadcasting of programs across all our TV and radio stations."
According to management, if the general outage continues, there is concern that the situation could become more complicated starting on Thursday. The attack does not appear to be completely under control.
Furthermore, the group was able to continue broadcasting its programs because the infection only affected office systems.
According to Le Parisien, M6 stated that the weather maps could not be loaded before and after the news programs on Saturday.
