From today's, Wall Street Journal...
Dish Network -- and Its Customers -- Are Still Reeling From Cyberattack
By Will Feuer
About a month after Dish Network Corp. disclosed a cyberattack, the satellite-TV and wireless provider is still working to get all its operations up and running.
Customers said they are still struggling to access certain services such as HBO Max and other third-party streaming services, get into their accounts and reach customer-service call centers. Millions of people are waiting for updates from the company on whether their personal information was compromised in the data breach.
Dish said wait times for customer service are running longer than usual as customers search for answers. The company said it has resolved many of the issues that emerged from the initial incident, which Dish disclosed Feb. 28.
On Thursday evening, the company restored its mydish.com site, where customers can review billing information, request programming changes and make other account adjustments, a spokesman said. Some customers said they were still struggling to get into the site Friday morning.
The company said its wireless Boost Mobile service is back to normal and its Sling TV streaming service is fully working. Dish also said it has been signing up and installing new services for customers for weeks.
"The vast majority of our websites, customer care functions, self-service applications, and payment systems are now operational," the company said.
Some customers said they are still struggling to access services and sitting in hourslong waits with call centers to get the company to answer questions about recent bills. Some said they have been left in the dark about the data breach. Dish has yet to say whether personal data, including billing information, were accessed in the data breach.
Lise Brown of Peoria, Ariz., said she has had various service issues with Dish TV for the past month. She said that she can't access Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime streaming platform, which she has through her Dish TV subscription, and that she has had trouble changing channels on Dish TV. She has tried to call the company, but hasn't gotten through to customer service.
She said she filed a complaint last week with the Federal Communications Commission and plans to end her Dish TV subscription as soon as she is able to get in touch with the company. She doesn't plan to replace Dish with another cable-TV provider. She said she would stick with streaming services.
A Dish spokesman said customers should be able to access third-party services now.
Leesa Gardt of Garrett, Ind., said she canceled the credit card that she had on file with Dish because she is concerned about the data breach. Ms. Gardt said she is frustrated by what she said was a lack of transparency from Dish about the cybersecurity incident. She said she is switching TV providers.
Juvenal Orozco of Herndon, Va., said that his Dish TV service stopped working last week, and that he hasn't been able to get in touch with customer service as Dish call centers struggle to work through a backlog of complaints. Mr. Orozco said call wait times are hours long.
Greg Acquistapace of Auburn, Calif., has been trying to sign up for a new Dish TV account for weeks, he said, but a customer-service representative told him he couldn't be signed up until the cybersecurity incident was resolved.
The fallout from the data breach could weigh on Dish's financial performance in the short term, according to analysts at New Street Research. They estimate that Dish lost about 75,000 potential new pay-TV customers because the hack prevented the addition of new subscribers for nearly a month.
The pay-TV industry is already hurting from cord-cutting as Americans switch to streaming services. In the last three months of 2022, Dish lost 268,000 pay-TV subscribers, leaving it with 9.75 million.
The analysts estimate that the hack could drag down 2023 revenue by $325 million. The average analyst estimate for Dish's 2023 revenue stands at about $16.2 billion, according to FactSet.
Shares of Dish, down about 23% so far this month, fell 1% on Friday and traded at their lowest levels since November 2008, when global markets were rocked by the financial crisis.