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Dec 20, 2023

Cybersecurity incident at DISH leads to customer payment problems

Digital Content Producer SPOKANE, Wash. — A cybersecurity incident at DISH led

Digital Content Producer

SPOKANE, Wash. — A cybersecurity incident at DISH led to customers having trouble paying their bills and other operations, the company told 4 News Now on Monday.

4 News Now received multiple calls from viewers saying they were unable to pay their DISH bills because the system was down.

In a statement sent to 4 News Now, DISH says they had a cybersecurity incident on February 23 that affected internal communications, customer call centers and internet sites with Dish.

"We immediately activated our incident response and business continuity plans to contain, assess, and remediate the situation," the company said in the statement. "Cybersecurity experts and outside advisors were retained to assist in the evaluation of the situation, and we notified appropriate law enforcement authorities."

DISH also said on February 27, certain data was extracted from their IT systems. They say it's possible the investigation will show that the extracted data includes personal information.

They say that investigation is ongoing.

"The security of our customers’ data is important to us, and if we learn that personal information was compromised, we’ll take the appropriate steps and let impacted customers know," DISH said.

Dish says many of their customers are having issues reaching service desks, accessing their accounts and making payments.

"Our teams are making progress on the customer service front every day," DISH said. "We’ve increased our call center capacity, social media response capabilities and help ticket processing, but it may take a little more time before things are fully restored."

Dish says DISH TV, Sling TV, wireless services and data networks are operating and up and running.

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Digital Content Producer

Vincent Saglimbeni joined the 4 News Now team full time in April 2022 as a digital content producer. Vinny grew up in San Jose, California before graduating from Gonzaga University in May of 2022, studying journalism and minoring in broadcasting during his four years there. In his final semester at Gonzaga, Vinny was the Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper, The Gonzaga Bulletin. Before officially joining 4 News Now, Vinny spent the summer of 2021 interning with 4 News Now. When he is not in the newsroom, you can find him gaming, playing sports, throwing pizza dough and making pizza for his friends and family or cheering on/anxiously watching — depending on who you ask — his favorite Bay Area sports teams (sorry, Seahawks fans). You can find Vinny on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Email him at [email protected] with any news tips!