Casper, WY – A Casper radio station is apologizing for a number of antisemitic alerts it sent out to its mobile subscribers Wednesday morning.
In a message to its readers on Facebook, K2 Radio announced that their “system was breached and a number of obscene/offensive alerts were sent during the overnight hours.”
Cowboy State Daily received a copy of some of the mobile alerts that were distributed.
The headline of two of the alerts was a series of swastikas while the headlines of the other two were “We Hate Jews” and “HITLER DID NOTHING WRONG.”
The messages under the headlines were all antisemitic.
The radio station said it is investigating the incident.
“K2 Radio does not tolerate such speech and we thank you for your understanding,” the station said.
Tom McCarthy, president and general manager of Townsquare Media in Casper, on Friday said because it is an ongoing investigation, he would not be offering any further comment outside of the station’s statement.
He did say that he is “confident that it is not a current employee of Townsquare.”
The executive director of Cyber-Wyoming, a nonprofit organization that provides training and consulting to businesses, nonprofits and small government in Wyoming, said companies should prepare for breaches beforehand.
“Every organization needs to take a really good inventory of their social media,” Laura Baker told Cowboy State Daily on Friday afternoon.
“Once you get through that inventory, figure out who has access to what then you start thinking about how you want to control it,” Baker said.
Baker said if an organization doesn’t have a plan for cyberattacks, it could be left scrambling.
She said her organization uses a journalist model based on the “Five Ws”: Who, What, When, Where and Why.
“Who’s gonna take care of it? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Why did it happen?” she said.
Although many of K2’s readers appeared upset on Facebook, they showed support for the popular radio station.
“Sorry you are having to deal with such a hateful action against your organization. The world has gone a little crazy, and some of that’s landed in Casper. Stay strong,” wrote Lisa Burleson Scroggins.
