Brokerages, Banks Caught Up in Massive Tech Outage

News July 19, 2024 at 10:56 AM
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What You Need To Know

  • Clients at Bank of America, JPMorgan, Schwab and Wells Fargo reported problems, according to Downdetector.
  • Downdetector reported no major issues at Vanguard or Fidelity as of mid-morning Eastern time.
  • Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said it is working with impacted customers to resolve the matter.
Businesman gesturing angrily in front of computer during outage of banking website

Clients of financial services companies couldn't log into their accounts Friday as technology outages hit operations at businesses worldwide.

The issues are tied to a software update by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, causing computers operating on Microsoft's Windows system to crash, according to multiple news outlets such as the Associated Press. At the same time, a widespread outage of the cloud computing service Microsoft Azure affected Windows PCs, a report from Data Center Dynamics explained.

The result: global service disruptions for financial institutions, as well as airlines, hospitals, ports and media sites around the world. 

In the U.S., clients at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Charles Schwab, TD Bank, Wells Fargo, Visa, U.S. Bank and Square reported problems, as well as users of payroll company ADP, among others, according to outage monitoring site Downdetector.

Downdetector reported no major issues at Vanguard or Fidelity as of mid-morning Eastern time.

A message on the Charles Schwab website and its account on X, formerly Twitter, read: "Due to a third-party, global, industrywide issue, certain online functionality may be intermittently slow or unavailable. We're actively monitoring the issue. Phone services may be disrupted and hold times may be longer than usual."

TD Bank said on its home page that online banking and the TD app were unavailable but the institution expected them to be up and running soon. At about 2 p.m., the bank posted on X that many affected systems had been restored but customers might experience "intermittent service impacts." 

"CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts," CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on X at 5:45 a.m. Eastern time. "Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. 

"We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organizations ensure they're communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers," he said.

Microsoft, confirming that the CrowdStrike update caused systems to crash globally, told the AP it was working with customers to help them recover.

Among bank clients reporting problems on social media, one X user said his Chase and Wells Fargo debit cards were being declined.

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