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KOSW board reviews website outages, cybersecurity attacks and backup internet options
Summary
KOSW volunteers reported recent website crashes and repeated unauthorized login attempts; the board discussed paid website upgrades, cellular hotspots (jetpacks), ISP backups, Comrex equipment location and new tower rental estimates as fixes and contingencies.
Volunteers told the Ocean Shores meeting that KOSW's website and streaming have experienced repeated outages this year and that the station paid nearly $839 for a website upgrade amid ongoing failures.
"We paid them nearly $850 more" and after the upgrade the station "must have crashed 10 times," Trey said, adding that the vendor provided suggestions for additional protections. He told the board the station was targeted by "coordinated attacks trying to basically sign into our account."
Board members described technical workarounds the station is using, including nightly incremental backups and off-site copies; volunteers reported incremental backups are stored by multiple people. The group also discussed using cellular hotspots ("jetpacks") as a temporary streaming backup and purchasing larger-capacity devices or bonded jetpacks to support remote broadcasts.
Technical volunteers noted complications: the Comrex remote box was not kept at the station but "in Jerry's house," limiting quick access to emergency gear, and some jetpack and router setups worked on one computer but not on others. The technology volunteer said the station has considered switching ISPs (CenturyLink was suggested as less outage-prone than Coast) or installing a dual-ISP failover but that a previously approved backup plan had not been implemented.
Board members discussed costs and capabilities: an offline comment estimated $400–$600 for a hotspot unit and suggested $100 per month for unlimited data, while another referenced router hardware with SIM capability for several hundred dollars. The board agreed to investigate plugins and coding fixes suggested by the website vendor, review options for a bonded cellular solution for away games, and revisit implementation of a formal ISP-failover plan. There was no formal vote recorded on procurement or new contracts in the transcript.
