Beloved radio station goes dark for worldwide listeners after sinister San Diego attack

A sophisticated cyberattack targeting the San Diego Community College District has knocked offline the digital feeds of one of Southern California’s last full-time jazz radio stations during finals week — leaving the station’s global audience in the dark.

KSDS Jazz 88.3 told listeners this week that the district-wide cyberattack disabled its streaming and mobile app services.

The long-running public jazz station operates out of San Diego City College and is licensed to the San Diego Community College District, but broadcasts to over 200 countries worldwide via online streaming.

“Over the weekend the San Diego Community College District suffered a cyber attack that took down the internet — including the KSDS streaming and app feed,” the station wrote in a Facebook post Monday.

The station also posted an alert on its website acknowledging the outage.

“KSDS apologizes about our stream being down,” the message read. “We are currently working on the issue and hope to have it resolved as soon as possible.”

The station said it does not yet know when service will be restored.

District officials have described the incident as the largest cyberattack in the history of the San Diego Community College District, according to local reports.

The attack began Saturday after cybersecurity systems detected suspicious activity within the district’s network, according to reporting from Times of San Diego and CBS8.

Officials initially believed the threat had been contained after shutting down servers over the weekend, but issues resurfaced after systems briefly came back online Monday.

Founded in 1951, KSDS began programming jazz music in 1973 and became San Diego’s only full-time jazz station in 1985, according to the station’s website.

The noncommercial station broadcasts 24 hours a day at 88.3 FM and is one of the few remaining full-time jazz radio stations in America.

The station’s online stream has reached listeners in 206 countries and territories, according to figures posted on its website.

Its largest international audiences include Japan, Germany, Italy, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

KSDS says its mission is dedicated to “preserving the past, promoting the present and nurturing the future” of jazz music through live programming, education initiatives and community partnerships.

The station has earned national recognition over the years, including the National Association of Broadcasters’ prestigious Marconi Award for “Jazz Station of the Year” in 1993.

KSDS also serves as a training facility for students majoring in radio, television and film at San Diego City College.

The district has not publicly said who may be behind the cyberattack.

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