Dish Network says data taken in cybersecurity incident
Summary
- The company says it is trying to determine whether personal information was affected.
Dish Network Corp. said Tuesday it was hit by a cybersecurity incident and that certain data was taken from internal systems.
The company said in a securities filing it was working to determine whether personal information was affected. The company has notified law-enforcement authorities and is working with third-party experts and advisers to investigate the incident.
Last week, company executives said on a conference call to discuss the quarterly results that Dish had experienced a network outage that affected internal servers and IT telephony.
The company said its Sling TV service and its wireless and data networks are still operational, but internal communications, customer call centers and some websites have been affected.
On Tuesday, Dish’s website had a notice that it was facing problems. “We are experiencing a system issue that our teams are working hard to resolve," the notice read.
Separately, Bank of America analysts on Tuesday downgraded Dish shares to underperform from buy, saying that opportunities for the company to leverage its growing 5G wireless infrastructure could be fading. They said that established players are chasing the same partnerships that Dish would need for its 5G network once it is at scale.
“Imagine you built a better mousetrap, but there were no mice," the analysts wrote in a research note. “A once-exciting and seemingly-clear set of opportunities to leverage its 5G wireless infrastructure now feels further away, in our view."
Dish shares fell 6.8% on Tuesday to $11.38. They are down by nearly two-thirds over the past 12 months.
Write to Will Feuer at Will.Feuer@wsj.com
