Dish Network takes $30M cyberattack hit

Dish Network executives played down the impact of a cyberattack in February during its Q1 earnings announcement, but CEO and president Erick Carlson stated it incurred about $30 million in related expenses.

Carlson said expenses covered remediation, customer support, consulting and IT costs. Dish Network does not expect any additional costs or further impacts to its subscriber base from the incident.

The executive said an internal investigation found no customer databases were accessed in the attack, but a limited number of other records containing personal information were among the data extracted.

Chair Charlie Ergen stated reports of Boost Mobile customers not being able to pay their bills were exaggerated.

Carlson said Boost Mobile customers were not materially affected, but there was an impact on its legacy satellite video service.

Wireless
Executives outlined plans to offer iPhones across its post-paid Boost Infinite services in a few months and make more LTE Band 70 devices available.

Dish Wireless president and COO John Swieringa noted its 5G network covered 70 million customers across more than 50 cities.

“We would expect that by the end of the year, we’ll be serving the majority of the US population” he said, noting retail customers will also be added.

Executives stated Dish Network remained on track to cover 70 per cent of the US population by June.

Ergen said it will likely pause capex after it meets the target and restart in late 2024.

Dish Network lost 81,000 wireless subscribers in Q1 compared with a loss of 343,000 in the comparable period of 2022, leaving it with 7.9 million.

Net income fell from $433 million to $223 million on revenue of $3.4 billion, down from $4.3 billion.