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Dish Facing Class-Action Lawsuits in Aftermath of Ransomware Attack
Dish Network now faces at least two shareholder class-action lawsuits in response to a widespread outage the company attributes to a ransomware attack. Personal information was likely stolen by the malicious hacker(s).
Bragar Eagel & Squire, and Bernstein Liebhard filed the class-action lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The suits are on behalf of investors who bought or otherwise acquired Dish securities between Feb. 22, 2021, and Feb. 27, 2023.
Bernstein Liebhard’s class-action lawsuit also alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Throughout the class period, Dish made materially false and misleading statements regarding the company’s business, operations and prospects, Bragar Eagel & Squire said.
In a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Dish said the network outage affected internal servers and IT telephony. It also said the threat actor(s) extracted certain data from its IT systems.
Customers Still Don’t Know if Their Personal Information was Stolen
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported Dish is still working to get all of 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, access their accounts and reach customer-service call centers. In addition, customers are waiting for updates on whether their personal information was compromised.
We couldn’t reach Dish for comment on the lawsuits. Its website no longer details any issues stemming from the cyberattack.
On Feb 24, Dish announced that a “network outage” caused the company’s websites and apps to cease functioning. That subjected customers to authentication issues when signing into TV channel apps using their Dish credentials, and appeared to render the company’s call center phone numbers unreachable, according to the lawsuits.
Then, on Feb. 28, Dish confirmed it had “determined that the outage was due to a cybersecurity incident and notified appropriate law enforcement authorities,” adding that the “threat agent” behind the ransomware attack stole data from Dish’s compromised systems, potentially containing personal information, the lawsuits said.
Subsequent Stock Performance
Dish’s stock price subsequently fell 6.5%, closing at $11.41 per share on Feb. 28.
“As a result of defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the company’s securities, plaintiff and other class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” Bragar Eagel & Squire said.
According to the class-action lawsuits, Dish allegedly:
- Overstated its operational efficiency and maintained a “deficient” cybersecurity and IT infrastructure.
- As a result, Dish was unable to properly secure customer data, leaving it vulnerable to access by malicious third parties.
- The foregoing cybersecurity deficiencies also both rendered Dish’s operations susceptible to widespread service outages and hindered the company’s ability to respond to such outages.
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On February 7th I paid my Dish Bill even though I did not have a bill. By the 11th I had no Dish service I called all day on the 11th I called all day on Saturday the 12th I went through technical support many times I was to get a $20 discount on my bill then by Sunday someone was supposed to arrive to fix my signal between 8:00 and noon. No one showed up on the 13th I requested that they turn off my Dish service. A ticket was made out and I still have the TV Guide on my TV with the Weather Channel so the service was not turned off. As of March 29th I called to cancel service and they disconnected the phone I called again I was supposed to get a call back because of too many phone calls I never got a call back. When I called again a lady had to transfer my call to someone who can take care of my cancellation and again they canceled the phone call. Now I get my bill for April they’re charging me for service I don’t have and haven’t had since February 11th therefore I’m owed my money back for non-service. I called during the proper times I’ve talked to multiple people and I cannot cancel my Dish and I’m getting highly upset. I’m about to have a heart attack I need help also on my April bill has no reflection of a $20 discount I was supposed to get either. The customer service people are uneducated as to what to do I’m getting people that don’t speak English very well and I’m about to have a heart attack. I sent a Gmail yesterday to Dish tell him to cancel my service and it’s getting ridiculous with this company that I no longer want anything to do with. I want my refund of last month’s payment because I haven’t had service. 15 years of being a customer and paying my bill on time every time. I’m getting the runaround they will not cancel I don’t know why nobody knows what they’re doing over here help help
I feel your pain , your situation is almost identical to mine. we pay our bill on auto pay!!!!!! so I contacted our credit card, filed a dispute case. will see what that does, might have to file multiple times ….. I want to send back Dish equipment. can’t even get them to send me return boxes. this is B.S.
I’ve been trying to send my back as well. They shut me off but are still charging monthly bills
Hi I got the run around with dish to. I kept looking on my TV screen for my payment couldn’t find I looked up the phone number on the line called to call Dish I noticed February 23rd dish has been Cyber attack I called and all I got with wish I was having trouble with the internal server come to find out a few days later they found out that I had been abstracted from their internal server I’ve had to run around I’ve had people hung up on me disconnect me been put on hold for over 4 hours and believe it or not I even had time to take a shower had the phone in the bathroom with the speaker on so I can hear oh you can hear is that freaking music they said weather and hold being hold we can call you back punch one I did will call you back I never did get a call I’ve done that three or four times when I finally got through I had my tissue 418.84 third 25th of 23 I said I can’t pay this right now you said you didn’t have my account number on your screen when I asked you about it yeah we could to go I said I can pay it maybe this second of April well during that time which was last week sometime I got a Gmail with a Dish Bill of $244.01 kept looking for my account on my TV screen after days of looking on the TV screen it popped up there at the very top of the page on the left hand side bill created the second the 25th of 23 yes I took pictures and I got a printed out two days after the Cyber attack happened and they said that they notice a few days later that their internal data service had been abstracted no wonder I couldn’t find anything and no wonder they couldn’t see nothing on their screen their screen with black I said told them that they had a must have been a bad cyber attacks the one woman that I talked to said he was bad I had to go down to the bank get everything changed because of that Cyber attack I have been under a lot of stress over there anyway I finally got through to and told him to remove that old bill because that wasn’t my bill I only owed $118 and 4 cents made arrangements for it to be paid the second of April that was when I may be able to pay it she wouldn’t remove it she said she can remove only 30 days which brought it down to 122 424 and some odd sense I said cancel it she said do you really want to do that I said bear with me a moment now I’m debating but got back on on phone told her to cancel shut it down I still got the TV got up stuff like that still up there I have yet to receive the box the ship it receiver back to them and on top of the 244 bill going into my second or third installment of the two-year contract she slapped me with another 2-year contract being 20-25 when I have it paid off I said I’ll make the $10 a monthly as I see fit when I get around to it yes I am mad I’ve had my data information store and I have been loyal customer paid my bill before time well one of the girls told me this is to your account I said that’s not my bill of course it might have my account number on it but that’s not my bill I said I got my bill right here it’s the pay bill the third month of the 25th 2023 I’m not playing I told her I wasn’t paying it I told her this happened on their watch it’s not the customers fault and your penalizing the customer I’m also aware that you got insurance cover this stuff I have heard other people are fighting with them their bills has went up to I don’t know who to get in touch with the file class action suit against one against them or to join one or anything this is unnecessary I have never dealt with such rude Representatives hang up calls and not cooperating wouldn’t even let me talk to the supervisor they put me on hold for just a few seconds came back and said supervisor I guess it’s not available I said get someone on there if you’re not capable of taking care of this she did it again came back supervisors and available well apparently everybody’s not available there I don’t want anything more to do with him and there’s a lot more that went on doing her many conversations and run around I’m sick of it I have had panic attacks after panic attack anxiety attack I’ve got multiples cirrhosis among other things of course I’ve had panic attack before this all started I take medicine for that but it’s been unbearable and very depressing and stressful
After trying to reach Dish for 35 days, finally got through, but no one could help me. My contact was up and I wanted to end my Dish account. I spent a total of 12 hours on hold in 10 days ,just to end my service and get my refund for overpayment. They said the refund would be sent within 2 weeks and I would get a box to send my equipment back. I have received nothing, I called again and was told that they couldn’t do anything about the refund because of system issues still being a problem, and not to worry about sending back the equipment. I started contacting Dish February 23 and it is now April 10th and although they did disconnect my service, the bills are still coming.