American TV giant and satellite broadcast provider, Dish Network has mysteriously gone offline with its websites and apps ceasing to function over the past 24 hours.
The widespread outage affects Dish.com, Dish Anywhere app as well as several websites and networks owned by the corporation. Customers also suggest the company's call center phone numbers are unreachable.
Additionally, customers are facing authentication issues when signing into TV channel apps such as MTV & Starz via their Dish credentials.
Dish Network's remote employees have been cut off from accessing their work systems.
Dish Network website, phones, apps offline
Dish Network websites and apps including Dish.com, DishWireless.com, and Dish Anywhere are facing a prolonged outage with customers unable to get to their accounts or stream TV online:
BleepingComputer also observed the Dish Anywhere Android app experiencing connection issues:
Customers have also reported experiencing problems when attempting to pay their bills or calling customer service centers.
I'm going to speculate but I think Dish got hacked. https://t.co/parDKO4kPt is down, along with their call center is completely down. My wife couldn't login to her VPN for work. This is really bad. You think it would've been up by now.. #dish #dishnetwork
— ArmedScubaSteve (@ArmedScubaSteve) February 23, 2023
'Dish Answers,' the company's Twitter support account states that "an internal systems issue is impacting some of our customer service operations," and that the network is working hard to restore access.
An internal systems issue is impacting some of our customer service operations. We're sorry for the inconvenience. We'll be able to help you out as soon as our systems are back up. Thank you for your patience.
— DISH Answers (@dish_answers) February 24, 2023
-Joe S.
A report published by The Verge also shows an internal email sent to Dish Network's employees, with management notifying them of an ongoing "VPN issue."
Two sources told the media outlet that they were being asked to "stand by" for information from management but have been left in the dark.
"They say it hasn't even been made clear whether they'll be paid," states the report. "Employees have also been told that they won't be able to connect to their VPN, keeping remote workers from logging in to work."
Employees report it's a cyberattack
A source in touch with a Dish Network employee told BleepingComputer that the network "has been hit" (by a cyber attack) with employees seeing "blank icons" on their Desktop—something that typically occurs after a ransomware infection encrypts the victim's files.
Hours after publication of this piece, another Dish Network employee contacted us stating that Dish has indeed been "cyber attacked."
The employee reports receiving a written message from their manager that the incident "was caused by an outside bad actor, a known threat agent" and that the company is unsure how they gained access.
The email goes on to say that the company is working with an external vendor to resolve the issue.
BleepingComputer emailed Dish Network's press team in advance of publishing but it is not clear if they have access to their emails during this incident. Prior to that, we attempted to reach Dish via telephone but did not get an answer.
An automated response sent to us from the 'Dish Answers' Twitter account reiterated the "internal system issue" the company was facing.
BleepingComputer is continuing to investigate the matter and will provide you with updates as more information becomes available.
If you are a Dish Network employee or have any information with regards to the incident, send us a tip online or via Signal at (646) 961-3731. You may also contact the author directly via Twitter DM.
Update Feb 25th, 6:50 AM ET: Added statement from another Dish Network employee who is confirming this to be a cyber attack. Removed link to another outlet's report citing "a person familiar with the matter" dispelling it as one.
Comments
h_b_s - 1 year ago
While it wouldn't be at all surprising if it were a cyber attack given the current digital environment, there's no need to invoke attack explanations as many corporate networks are brittle and subject to catastrophic cascade effects with the losses of certain single points of failure due to human mistakes in configuration deployments or even hardware failure of a critical router or authoritative DNS server. The Facebook fiasco some time back is one highly visible example of such a thing occurring. There are other less reported occurrences with ISPs all the time where the push of a single bad routing table can knock hundreds of millions of customers effectively offline for hours or days.
AxSharma - 1 year ago
Thanks for reading!
Tend to agree with you, however, the patterns seen in this case (phone lines down in addition to IT systems, and the "outage" explanation on the website as opposed to the site being merely unreachable or timing out, among other factors including an employee's statement) are consistent with ransomware occurrences we have seen in the past. That is one reason we felt it was relevant to at least mention the possibility of a cyber attack as we continue to investigate the issue. Your feedback on the topic is greatly appreciated and helps us with covering such issues in the future!
GT500 - 1 year ago
I would like to point out that ransomware infections at businesses are not always a cyberattack. There's a very big difference between a threat actor deliberately targeting an organization and attempting to infect systems with ransomware (whether by direct hacking or social engineering), and a ransomware infection that happens due to the carelessness of an employee.
bitanalyst - 1 year ago
The fact that the outage occurred the same day they were reporting quarterly earnings and announcing their 5G network makes me think this was probably a targeted attack.
h_b_s - 1 year ago
@AxSharma
Not to be intentionally argumentative, but the symptoms appear to also be consistent with what happened at Facebook when they screwed up their DNS server configuration iirc. If Dish is also using a VoIP solution like most large corporations then their traditional telephone communications could be out simultaneously.
I'm just playing devil's advocate. Outside looking in, it's mostly an educated guess like you're saying till someone tells the public what happened and then some leaker tells the press what *really* happened. ;)
AxSharma - 1 year ago
Fair enough. And while we're at it, another (verified) Dish Network employee just contacted us confirming the company has been cyber attacked. Article updated.
johnlsenchak - 1 year ago
Still showing the message below 8:15 EST 2/25/23
"We are experiencing a system issue that our teams are working hard to resolve.
So that we may assist you with DISH service, please request more information below."
sabrinat321 - 1 year ago
It is most likely a cyber attack. My payment went through last night, but I have no satellite working at the moment.
rjallen - 1 year ago
At approx 1430 hours MST Thursday, 23 Feb. 2023, I was attempting to activate a replacement Dish receiver as an existing customer of Dish. Install went smoothly, until the activation stage. To do this, you send serial number of your old dish box with your zip code. Activation from this point can take up to about 30 minutes although the system will usually reply much quicker. After 30 minutes, the install timed out with no activation. Nothing since then. Instructions refer you to the main Dish phone number. First, there was no answer then only a few minutes later the same trouble message still supplied at the time of this post had been installed.
I do note the website also went down at the same point. But late Feb. 24 a static place holder address asked of people wanting NEW SERVICE to leave a message. Nothing about existing customers or others who need assistance.
Swi66 - 1 year ago
I happened to check my bank statement today and discovered my pending Dish Network bill was $40 more than last month. I tried contacting the dish to find out what was going on, but of course their customer service is down. If they were hacked? Was our customer, and auto payment info compromised?
DyingCrow - 1 year ago
As of today, dish.com is still down. It would have been fixed by now if it was a hardware or misconfiguration issue, like h_b_s suggested.