Dish Says Cyberattack Caused Internal Systems Outage, Warns Personal Info May Have Been Stolen
Dish Network is working to recover from a cyberattack that disrupted its internal servers and customer-service operations — and said the hack may have resulted in the theft of personal information.
On Feb. 23, Dish execs announced on the operator’s earnings call that the company had experienced a network outage. After an investigation by cyber-security experts and outside advisers, Dish determined that the outage was due to “a cyber-security incident and notified appropriate law enforcement authorities,” the company disclosed in an SEC filing Tuesday.
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On Monday, Feb. 27, Dish said, it “became aware that certain data was extracted from the corporation’s IT systems as part of this incident” and said it’s possible that an investigation “will reveal that the extracted data includes personal information.”
As of Tuesday, messages on Dish’s website indicated the problem was still ongoing. “As a result of this incident, many of our customers are having trouble reaching our service desks, accessing their accounts and making payments,” the company said in a statement posted on its site. “We’re making progress on the customer service front every day, including ramping up our call capacity, but it will take a little time before things are fully restored.”
In the SEC filing, the company said the Dish satellite TV service, Sling TV, and its wireless and data networks remain operational.
For the fourth quarter of 2022, Dish’s total pay-TV subscribers decreased 268,000, to end the year with 9.75 million customers. That comprised 7.42 million Dish satellite TV subscribers (down from 7.61 million in Q3) and 2.33 million Sling TV subscribers (down from 2.41 million the prior quarter).
Dish reported Q4 revenue of $4.04 billion, down about 1%. Net income came in at $936 million, compared with $552 million in the year-earlier quarter. Diluted earnings per share were $1.47 for the fourth quarter, compared with 87 cents per share during the same period in 2021, beating Wall Street expectations.
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