A Dish Network satellite dish. Image: Ryan Finnie (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The issue has caused widespread disruption to the company’s services, with reports that employees are unable to access their VPN to work remotely.
US satellite broadcast provider Dish Network has suffered an outage that has impacted its services for days.
Dish Network’s main website loads with a message that states the company is experiencing a systems issue that “our teams are working hard to resolve”. The impact appears to be widespread, with customer support systems and apps reportedly offline based on complaints shared on Twitter.
On the website, the company also said it is experiencing issues with processing payments and making account updates for some customers.
A Dish Network employee speaking to BleepingComputer claims the company has been hit by a cyberattack. This employee said a message from management claimed the incident was caused by “an outside bad actor”.
Reports of the outage first began on Thursday 24 February, based on complaints shared online. One customer said that “all IT systems” including phones, websites and payments were offline. Customers also reported issues when signing into certain TV channel apps using their Dish logins.
In response, Dish Network said that an “internal systems issue” is impacting some of its customer service operations.
“We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” a company spokesperson said on Twitter. “We’ll be able to help you out as soon as our systems are back up.”
The outage also appears to have impacted the company’s staff, as two sources told The Verge that they had not received information on the cause and that it isn’t clear when they will be paid.
Dish Network staff were also informed they will be unable to log into their VPN, based on an alleged internal email shared with The Verge.
It was also reported that the Boost Mobile and Boost Infinite websites – which are owned by Dish Network – displayed notices about a technical issue impacting services.
It is currently unclear when the internal systems issue will be resolved, as issues are still being reported according to DownDetector. Dish Network has more than 7m video subscribers, based on 2022 statistics.
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A Dish Network satellite dish. Image: Ryan Finnie via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
