Dish Network has reportedly suffered over a highly disruptive ransomware attack that took the company’s websites and apps offline, as well as rendering its call centers unavailable, and cutting off remote workers from access to internal systems.
Customers have also been affected by the incident, as signing into certain Dish TV channel apps wasn’t possible.
At press time, the company’s main website was still showing a notification saying “we are experiencing a system issue that our teams are working hard to resolve.” Other websites are completely unavailable.
VPN issue?
There was little information coming from the company itself. Even some of its own employees are being kept in the dark, it seems. The company’s Twitter support account posted of "an internal systems issue is impacting some of our customer service operations."
The Verge (opens in new tab) obtained an internal email the company sent to its employees, saying there’s a “VPN issue” it’s trying to resolve. Employees are asked to “stand by”.
"They say it hasn't even been made clear whether they'll be paid," The Verge’s report states. "Employees have also been told that they won't be able to connect to their VPN, keeping remote workers from logging in to work."
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But speaking to BleepingComputer, a different source confirmed the company was hit with a cyberattack in which employees were met with “blank icons” on their desktops. According to the publication, this is a typical occurrence in a ransomware attack.
Soon after, an employee reached out to the publication to say they were briefed by a manager that an “outside bad actor, a known threat actor” launched a cyberattack against the firm. They’re not yet certain how the attackers obtained access.
The story is developing 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 if any malware (opens in new tab) was used in the attack.
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Via: BleepingComputer (opens in new tab)
