8 March 2023
TOPEKA (KSNT) – Last Wednesday, a ransomware attack crippled Dish Network. Now one week later, customers in Kansas are still experiencing outages on Dish and its subsidiary company Boost Mobile.
As of Wednesday, March 8, the entire Dish Network website is redirecting viewers to a temporary maintenance page. The Boost Mobile home page is currently active, however, certain links on the site are taking customers to a temporary site maintenance page. The temporary maintenance page informs customers accessing their accounts, paying bills and contacting customer support may be impacted.
Image from the Boost Mobile website regarding mobile data plans as of Monday, March 6, 2023. According to the notice, some customers may experience difficulties accessing their accounts, paying bills or reaching customer support.
Local customers tell 27 News some Boost Mobile stores around Topeka have been closed since Feb. 23 and customer service can’t be reached. One customer says both the 17th Street and California Avenue locations were closed during business hours over the weekend.
We are experiencing an internal systems issue that is impacting our customer service, your service should not be interrupted at this time. Our teams are working hard to restore services as soon as possible.
An automated response on the Dish customer support hotline.
According to Downdetector, a website that tracks reports of service outages across the nation, there are active hotspots for outages in south central Kansas and numerous areas of the East Coast as of March 8.
When 27 News attempted to call Boost Mobile locations around Topeka, the 1332 Southwest 17th St. and 2037 Topeka Blvd. locations could not be reached. However, the California Avenue and Sixth Street locations did answer and confirmed the outage.
Dish has not responded to how much ransom was demanded, whether the company paid the ransom request or how long the attackers were inside the network, according to the Associated Press.