Dish Networks is exhibiting at CES 2016 in Las Vegas.
Justin Solomon | CNBC
One of the largest television providers in the United States, Dish Networkconfirmed on Tuesday that the previously disclosed “network outage” was the result of a cyber security breach that affected internal communications systems and customer support sites.
Shares fell more than 4% on the news and Bank of America’s double downgrade.
“Certain data has been removed,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. The admission is an evolution from last week’s earnings call, where it was described as an “internal failure.”
Dish Networks’ website was down for days starting last week, but now the company has revealed that “an internal communication [and] customer call centers” are still affected by the breach. Dish said it has brought in outside experts to help with the assessment.
The break-in happened on the morning of February 23, the same day the company reported fourth-quarter earnings. “We experienced an internal outage this morning that continues to impact our internal servers and IT telephony,” Dish CEO W. Eric Carlson said at the time. “We are analyzing the root causes and any consequences of the outage, while working to restore damaged systems as quickly as possible.”
Customers also experienced “authentication issues” when trying to access pay-TV programming like MTV or Starz using their Dish Network account, BleepingComputer reported. Internally, the Verge reported that a Dish manager sent a message to his employees warning them that an “internal system issue” meant they would not be able to remotely access Dish’s systems.
