Nine's 'core systems' still offline from hacking

Chris Pash
By Chris Pash | 30 March 2021
 
Getty

Nine Entertainment's core systems are still offline following a "significant, sophisticated and complex" cyber attack at the weekend.

Live to air programs were disrupted in the suspected ransomware attack early Sunday.

The cyber attack, whose source is so far unknown, has been described as the largest on a media company in Australia's history. 

Affected systems now have been contained, staff have been told.  

Nine's corporate network has been disconnected from the internet, and internal networks separated from one another, including Broadcast from Publishing, Sydney from Melbourne.

Technicians are working on recovering the most critical systems including on-air and print operations and revenue-driven services.

The Nine intranet is working. 

"We will be carefully assessing how we bring back controlled levels of connectivity into the network with an emphasis on service restoration, and I want to be clear it will take time before all our systems are back up and running," chief information and technology officer Damian Cronan told staff in an email.

CEO Mike Sneesby: "The cyber-attack we experienced over the weekend was significant in scale with high potential to disrupt our business."

He praised staff for displaying leadership, ingenuity and resilience as people operate around current limitations.

"We have also established a cross-business working group which is meeting regularly to concentrate on the priority of services to be restored," he said in an email.

"We will need to remain focussed across impacted business areas as we prioritise our technology resources to bring  systems back online – I’d like to thank all involved and all impacted for your incredible response so far and your ongoing commitment.

"We are conscious some of the systems you normally rely on each day have been impacted. It’s important that you continue to work with your managers on alternate processes, but acknowledge there are some tasks you will not be able to be complete at this stage."

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