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.
‘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.
-Joe S.— DISH Answers (@dish_answers) February 24, 2023
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.”
As for whether this is a cyber attack or not, multiple signs are indicative of one but there is only speculation and conflicting information around.
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.
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
But, “a person familiar with the issue” told The Desk that the network’s issues are not stemming from a cyber attack, but did not offer additional detail.
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.
Source: www.bleepingcomputer.com