Reportedly, Dish Network suffered a highly destructive ransomware attack that took down the company’s websites and apps, as well as disabling access to its call centers and cutting off access to internal systems for remote workers.
Customers were also affected by the incident as it was not possible to log into some Dish TV channel apps.
At press time, the company’s main website continued to display a notification that read “a system issue has occurred that our teams are working hard to resolve.” Other sites are completely unavailable.
VPN problem?
There was little information coming from the company itself. Even some of its own employees seem to be kept in the dark. The company’s Twitter support account posted that “an internal systems issue is affecting some of our customer service operations.”
Edge (opens in a new tab) received an internal email the company sent to its employees saying there was a “VPN issue” they were trying to resolve. Employees are asked to be “ready”.
“They say it hasn’t even been clarified whether they will be paid,” the Verge report states. “Employees have also been informed that they will not be able to connect to the VPN, which will prevent remote workers from logging into work.”
But speaking to BleepingComputer, another source confirmed that the company was hit by a cyberattack where employees were confronted with “blank icons” on their computers. According to the publication, this is a typical phenomenon in the case of a ransomware attack.
Soon after, an employee contacted the publication to say he had been told by a manager that “an evil outside actor, a known threat actor” had launched a cyberattack against the company. They are not yet sure how the attackers gained access.
The story unfolds and new details are likely to emerge in the coming hours and days, namely the identity of the group behind the attack, the ransom demand, and possible malware (opens in a new tab) was used in the attack.
By: Beeping Computer (opens in a new tab)
