Directv hacked or April Fools joke?

[Darrell S]

Just got this message trying to log into my account. I have never seen this message before.

503 ERROR​

OUR SITE IS HAVING SOME TECHNICAL ISSUES RIGHT NOW​

Possible reasons for this:

• Sunspots are flaring our atmosphere.
• Someone tripped over a power cord.
• We were told by support to turn it off and back on again.

Please try us again later.

 

[Mr Tony]

I got into my account no issues (I have Directv stream). I even could get onto the Directv system to watch a program

 

[Darrell S]

working for me now too. I guess it was brief outage.

 

[raoul5788]

working for me now too. I guess it was brief outage.

Maybe they were hacked but Directv spent the money to protect their systems. Unlike cheap Charlie.

 

[Radioguy41]

Maybe they were hacked but Directv spent the money to protect their systems. Unlike cheap Charlie.

Listen, shhh, here's a tip but don't tell anybody, OK? Since you are so enamored with the business geniuses running DTV I think you should rush right out and buy up all the DTV stock you can lay your hands on, OK? Why that would be like poking your finger right in Charlie's eye. You'll show him who's the smart one. Years from now when Charlie is gone you'll be sitting pretty, or on the toilet bowl depending on which way the wind blows. Which way do you think it'll blow? Think your money would be safe with those geniuses at DTV, after all they're sooo much smarter than Charlie, right?

 

[raoul5788]

Listen, shhh, here's a tip but don't tell anybody, OK? Since you are so enamored with the business geniuses running DTV I think you should rush right out and buy up all the DTV stock you can lay your hands on, OK? Why that would be like poking your finger right in Charlie's eye. You'll show him who's the smart one. Years from now when Charlie is gone you'll be sitting pretty, or on the toilet bowl depending on which way the wind blows. Which way do you think it'll blow? Think your money would be safe with those geniuses at DTV, after all they're sooo much smarter than Charlie, right?

Whose smarter? Well Dish got hacked and were down for weeks.

 

[Juan]

Whose smarter? Well Dish got hacked and were down for weeks.

Nobody lost service

 

[raoul5788]

Nobody lost service

I didn't say they did. No one was able to contact them though.

 

[primestar31]

Maybe they were hacked but Directv spent the money to protect their systems. Unlike cheap Charlie.

Dish was caught flat-footed, hands down.

I can MAYBE understand getting hit with Ransomware, BUT, I can never understand that they didn't have redundant off-site servers and backup systems that could have had them back up and running inside of 24-48 hours MAXIMUM.

 

[raoul5788]

Dish was caught flat-footed, hands down.

I can MAYBE understand getting hit with Ransomware, BUT, I can never understand that they didn't have redundant off-site servers and backup systems that could have had them back up and running inside of 24-48 hours MAXIMUM.

Yup. Costly way to run a business as big as they are.

 

[NYDutch]

Whose smarter? Well Dish got hacked and were down for weeks.

If DTV was hit with a ransomeware and paid the millions demanded, now they're not only out the money, but are sitting on a time bomb system that could be held for ransom again at any time. At least Dish now knows how the attack occurred and is taking steps to prevent a reocurence.

 

[navychop]

I can never understand that they didn't have redundant off-site servers and backup systems that could have had them back up and running inside of 24-48 hours MAXIMUM.

Because you refuse to accept that backup systems are infected also. These bad actors don’t infiltrate and strike immediately. They wait for several backups to also be infected. They get better and better at making detection difficult, nearly impossible. THEY are the leading edge. White Hats play catch-up.

I daresay today, NO ONE can recover from such an attack in a few days.

Don’t let your bias blind you. More and more organizations, including some you like, will be similarly hit.

I am reading of dark days ahead, where no one is safe, and it will be ever more risky to transact any sort of financial transaction over the Internet.

 

[NYDutch]

Dish was caught flat-footed, hands down.

I can MAYBE understand getting hit with Ransomware, BUT, I can never understand that they didn't have redundant off-site servers and backup systems that could have had them back up and running inside of 24-48 hours MAXIMUM.

With 10,000+ servers and desktops affected, having up to date backups of dynamic constantly changing systems would be a tall order. I understand they did rebuild in part from backups, but updating those backups to include current data would take more that a day or two. As for "offsite", where do you think the AWS servers Dish uses are located?

 

[raoul5788]

If DTV was hit with a ransomeware and paid the millions demanded, now they're not only out the money, but are sitting on a time bomb system that could be held for ransom again at any time. At least Dish now knows how the attack occurred and is taking steps to prevent a reocurence.

See primestar31's answer above.

 

[NYDutch]

See primestar31's answer above.

I'm a retired systems administrator/analyst for a multi-national company. There is no practical way multiple dynamic systems like those in the Dish systems could be dynamically backed up and reloaded to ~10K systems in a couple of days while still keeping them isolated from the same attack that hit the rest of the systems. At a minimum, all existing backups would first need to be fully vetted to make sure they're uninfected, since the point when the infection was originally inserted waiting to be triggered would typically be unknown for some time.

The key to prevention is to prevent the illegal entry in the first place, but humans being human makes that an almost impossible task. As quick as we design system safeguards, the black hats design ways around them. It's a constant whack-a-mole game that never ends.

 

[navychop]

 

[raoul5788]

I'm a retired systems administrator/analyst for a multi-national company. There is no practical way multiple dynamic systems like those in the Dish systems could be dynamically backed up and reloaded to ~10K systems in a couple of days while still keeping them isolated from the same attack that hit the rest of the systems. At a minimum, all existing backups would first need to be fully vetted to make sure they're uninfected, since the point when the infection was originally inserted waiting to be triggered would typically be unknown for some time.

The key to prevention is to prevent the illegal entry in the first place, but humans being human makes that an almost impossible task. As quick as we design system safeguards, the black hats design ways around them. It's a constant whack-a-mole game that never ends.

Don't most intrusions happen thru phishing scams in emails?

 

[NYDutch]

Many certainly do. As I said, "humans being human".