Dish Network Hit With Multi-Day Outage, Suspected Ransomware Attack

pcmag.com:

Dish Network has been hit by a suspected ransomware attack that’s led to the company’s websites(Opens in a new window), its apps, and customer service systems going down. The outage is now on its fourth day. 

The company’s main website currently features this message: “We are experiencing a system issue that our teams are working hard to resolve. For help with common issues, please select the Current Customer Support option below to see our FAQs and Troubleshooting guides.”

As The Verge notes(Opens in a new window), the outage hit when Dish CEO Erik Carlson was on an earnings call. He reportedly said the company was dealing with an “internal outage that’s continuing to affect our internal servers and IT telephony.” 

Dish employees told(Opens in a new window) Bleeping Computer they are seeing “blank icons” on their Desktop, typical of a ransomware infection that has encrypted files.

According to a Dish employee who spoke to BleepingComputer, their manager had told them the incident “was caused by a known threat agent,” though the satellite-TV provider is currently in the dark on how they gained access. It is working with an “external vendor” to fix the outage.

BleepingComputer also reports that Dish customers are having issues when they try to sign in to TV channel apps like MTV & Starz with their Dish logins. 

Dish customers have taken to social media to report that they cannot activate equipment or SIM cards from the company. Customers have also said they are being prevented from paying their bills. 

In response to one customer who complained about the outage, the company’s Twitter support account tweeted(Opens in a new window) that an “internal systems issue is impacting some of our customer service operations,”