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Heard 97.5 got hacked

Ryan Williams said:
KFNC isn't dominating the market, but it is still a 100 kW that covers more than 2.6 million with a 60 dBu signal or greater, which probably puts it easily in the top 5% of FM stations in the entire country.
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Back when we could get both "home" and "work" locations through the diary, we found in an extensive multi-market study spanning several years that 80% of fixed location listening is in the 70 dBu contour and 85% in the 65 dBu contour. While "the 60" may apply for in-car, even that is doubtful.

I saw about $70 million wasted in New York City based on "the protected contour". However, the target audience all lived at the edge of the 60 dBu signal where it was barely listenable. The station was sold about two decades later at a loss of over 90% of the purchase price.
 
davideduardo said:
I saw about $70 million wasted in New York City based on "the protected contour". However, the target audience all lived at the edge of the 60 dBu signal where it was barely listenable. The station was sold about two decades later at a loss of over 90% of the purchase price.
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Sounds like the sad tale of 92.7…
 
How about just regular ol' Linux devices, computers, Raspberry Pis, etc? I'm not sure how good they are at handling RF from powerful transmitters, but Linux does have good internet stream receiving/transmitting software available for it if you know what you're doing.
 
Barix boxes aren't the problem. The real problem is revealed by the Shodan scans. The management webpage for the device should NEVER be exposed to the raw internet.

There are plenty of relatively inexpensive firewall/routers with VPN capability that can be set up to forward the port streaming the audio while leaving the management port hiding totally behind the firewall, accessible only by VPN clients with the proper credentials.
 
The Houston Chronicle has an article about the "hack".

Here is the key quote regarding the Barix situation discussed in this thread:

"On Saturday, the station's radio tower site suffered a power outage that damaged transmission equipment, leading the station to use backup equipment to stay on air, said General Manager Todd Farquharson."

I'm glad to hear they are not depending on Barix on a full-time basis.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ne...-radio-station-gives-new-details-21205344.php
 
grich said:
Barix boxes aren't the problem. The real problem is revealed by the Shodan scans. The management webpage for the device should NEVER be exposed to the raw internet.

There are plenty of relatively inexpensive firewall/routers with VPN capability that can be set up to forward the port streaming the audio while leaving the management port hiding totally behind the firewall, accessible only by VPN clients with the proper credentials.
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There are so many firewall solutions available. Those devilish Barix boxes only need one access point: port 4444, which is where they listen for the RTSP protocol they use. From there, everything should be closed internally and, especially, publicly.

If it's possible to add a VPN security layer, that would be excellent.

The same applies to Comrex and LiveU.

Secure gateways like the HPE Instant ON SG1004 or a Fortinet SWG, SonicWALL, Ubiquiti are good options. If you're on a budget, you could also use pfSense or Omada gateways.

And if the budget allows, you should have Cisco, HPE Aruba/Juniper, or Palo Alto Networks as your SD-WAN.

Internal and external security are always important.
 
grich said:
Barix boxes aren't the problem. The real problem is revealed by the Shodan scans.
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The problem lies in the network administrator's level of trust; no scanner platform is the villain. Let me tell you about a case I discovered three years ago. During a general scan of my internet provider's network segment, I located a Broadcast Electronics administrative panel for a publicly accessible 50kW FM STX transmitter in my region. This presented a potential opportunity for malicious individuals to cause significant damage.

Luckily, I knew the owner of this station in Nogales and reported it directly to him. They disconnected the equipment from the network.
 


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