# Cyberattack on Direct Communications' upstream network cuts Eagle Mountain, Utah off from the internet for days

> A cyberattack on an upstream network cut Eagle Mountain, Utah off from the internet for days. What households can prepare before an outage reaches them.

FireAI Security & Research Team (HisnLabs) · Published 2026-09-28
Canonical: https://hisnlabs.com/en/news/eagle-mountain-utah-internet-cyberattack

Residents of Eagle Mountain, Utah went days with patchy or no home internet after a cyberattack hit network infrastructure that their local provider, Direct Communications, depends on. [FOX 13 News reported](https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/utah-county/eagle-mountain-residents-impacted-by-days-long-internet-outage) on 21 September that the company traced the disruption to one of its upstream providers rather than to its own network directly, and service continued to fail and recover intermittently over the following days [[2]](https://kutv.com/news/local/internet-restored-for-eagle-mountain-residents-following-cyberattack-outage).

## Background

Direct Communications is a small telecommunications company serving Eagle Mountain and nearby parts of Utah County. Like many regional internet providers, it buys upstream bandwidth from larger networks rather than operating every layer of infrastructure itself, so an attack several steps removed from a household’s own connection can still take that household offline. A distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack floods a target with traffic from many sources at once until legitimate traffic can no longer get through; it is a common way to disrupt a connection without compromising any device on the customer’s end.

## Findings

Direct Communications told customers the outages began with unusually heavy traffic hitting the providers that carry its internet connection further upstream, a pattern [Hoodline described](https://hoodline.com/2026/09/eagle-mountain-internet-knocked-out-again-as-cyberattack-drags-into-third-day/), citing KUTV and ABC4, as typical of a distributed denial-of-service attack. The flood caused slow speeds, packet loss and, for some households, a complete loss of service. The company’s own office phones went down too, and Eagle Mountain’s City Hall was affected for a time, though city officials told FOX 13 News that operations had resumed by Monday morning [[1]](https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/utah-county/eagle-mountain-residents-impacted-by-days-long-internet-outage).

Service came back and dropped out again over several days: an upstream fix restored stability at one point, then the network failed again the following night. Direct Communications posted on Facebook that internet availability was restored as of Monday afternoon, warned that some customers might still see lingering slow speeds, and said it was continuing to work with outside cybersecurity specialists to determine what happened, [KUTV reported](https://kutv.com/news/local/internet-restored-for-eagle-mountain-residents-following-cyberattack-outage) on 22 September.

> It’s really hard to sell digital things when I can’t get onto a digital device.
>
> — Jessica Newman, Eagle Mountain resident and Etsy shop owner, quoted by FOX 13 News

Newman told FOX 13 News she kept her business running by switching between family members’ phone hotspots to find a signal, and considered driving to her parents’ house in a nearby town just to fill orders [[1]](https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/utah-county/eagle-mountain-residents-impacted-by-days-long-internet-outage).

## Implications for households

The direct impact is limited to Direct Communications customers in Eagle Mountain. The pattern generalises to any household whose internet comes from a single small or regional provider: when that provider or a network it depends on is disrupted, there is no second connection unless one was already arranged. Remote work, a home-based shop, school assignments, smart locks, security cameras and a landline routed over the same connection can all stop at once.

> FireAI, the on-device firewall for macOS developed by HisnLabs, shows exactly what a Mac connects to when it switches to a phone hotspot or another network during an outage. A 17-day trial is available. [Download FireAI for Mac](https://hisnlabs.com/en/download)

## Recommendations

1. Learn how to tether a phone to a laptop as a backup connection, and check the mobile plan’s data allowance before an outage happens, not during one.
2. Keep offline copies of documents likely to be needed with no internet: a PDF of key records, a downloaded map, contact numbers saved locally rather than only in a cloud chat app.
3. Ask a provider or device manufacturer what happens, during an outage, to a landline phone or a medical or safety device that relies on the same internet connection.
4. Restart the router (unplug it, wait about 30 seconds, plug it back in) once service returns, as Direct Communications advised its own customers; a router that was factory-reset during the outage will need Wi-Fi set up on it again.
5. Change the router’s admin password from its default if that has never been done, and check for a firmware update once service is back.
6. Bookmark the provider’s status page or social media account, so updates during the next outage come from the provider rather than from rumour.

## Relevance to FireAI

FireAI runs on a Mac, not on an internet provider’s network. It cannot stop a denial-of-service attack against an ISP’s upstream provider, and it cannot restore a connection; that work is entirely the provider’s.

What it can do is address the part that happens on a Mac once a household is back online, or relying on a different network for a few days. [Coffee shop security mode](https://hisnlabs.com/en/docs/security-modes) blocks incoming connections and file or screen sharing from other devices on a network a user does not fully trust. [Wi-Fi profiles](https://hisnlabs.com/en/docs/switch-profiles-by-wifi) can be set up once, so a Mac switches to a stricter mode automatically whenever it joins a network other than the home one. After a router has been reset or reconfigured, [per-app rules](https://hisnlabs.com/en/docs/per-app-rules) and the [world map](https://hisnlabs.com/en/docs/world-map) let a user check that nothing on the Mac started communicating with an unfamiliar destination.

None of that replaces a second connection or a household backup plan. It keeps the Mac on a defined footing while the rest of the household arranges a workaround. FireAI is made by HisnLabs.

> FireAI applies the same per-app rules and Wi-Fi-based profiles whether a Mac is on a home network or a temporary one. A 17-day trial is available, no card required. [Download FireAI for Mac](https://hisnlabs.com/en/download)

## Limitations

None of the three sources name who was behind the attack, why Direct Communications’ upstream provider was targeted, or whether other regional providers were affected by the same infrastructure. As of the last report, the outside cybersecurity specialists’ findings had not been published, so the cause is attributed to a traffic pattern typical of a DDoS attack rather than to a confirmed, named type of attack.

Try [FireAI, by HisnLabs](https://hisnlabs.com/en/download) free for 17 days.

## Sources

- [FOX 13 News Utah (Jeremy Tombs), 21 September 2026: Eagle Mountain residents impacted by days-long internet outage](https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/utah-county/eagle-mountain-residents-impacted-by-days-long-internet-outage)
- [KUTV, 22 September 2026: Internet restored for Eagle Mountain residents following cyberattack outage](https://kutv.com/news/local/internet-restored-for-eagle-mountain-residents-following-cyberattack-outage)
- [Hoodline, 21 September 2026: Eagle Mountain Internet Knocked Out Again as Cyberattack Drags Into Third Day](https://hoodline.com/2026/09/eagle-mountain-internet-knocked-out-again-as-cyberattack-drags-into-third-day/)