Nationwide Outage Hits Bank of America: Customers Unable To Access Accounts

[Hydrogen]

In an apparent nationwide system outage, Bank of America customers have been shut out from accessing their accounts and online banking on Wednesday afternoon. As of 4pm ET the outage was continuing with most online systems still frozen.

On Downdetector.com reports starting spiking after 11:30 a.m. and the website was inundated with comments from Bank of America customers around the country saying they couldn’t access online banking from their applications or computers, transfer money or deposit money or checks.

Coral Springs resident Eric Sleeper told the Miami Herald that he received what looked like a phishing email from the bank Wednesday and immediately called customer service to see if something was wrong. A message on his online account said it could not pull up his information. When he called his local branch, a manager said that local managers were all calling each other trying to figure out what caused what now seems like a national outage and why they were unable to provide certain services.

Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens told the Herald that the bank is aware of the issues with mobile and online banking and is working to fix the problem. Bauwens added that many of the customers who were experiencing difficulties now have accounts that are operating normally.

“I know that the team is working quickly to bring everything back up. As time progresses they should be able to go back online,” Bauwens said.

When asked what caused the outage, Bauwens said she “did not have that information.”

Surprisingly, nobody has yet voiced the theory that it was Russia's crack hackers who are responsible.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, users across the country were reporting issues accessing their accounts.

“@BankofAmerica system wide outage on the day I’m closing on my house and there is nothing they can do about it,” tweeted Twitter user @CapricornLove7.

“The clerk at @BankofAmerica just said I can't make a deposit [because] if [sic] a nationwide disruption. Anyone know what's up?,” tweeted user @Henkenius.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-19/nationwide-outage-hits-bank-america-customers-unable-access-accounts

Interesting news to me. Wonder what happened. Brings to mind the blockchain debate. Some believe using a centralized backend database is superior to distributed blockchain ledgers. Although there have been times when transfer fees were high from a historical perspective. I can't remember many times when the blockchain was down in its entirety.

[Love!]

The Russians are coming!!!!! Which leader was it that said they would destroy America from within? And people thought hacking the election was sinister. How does Snowden sleep at night?   

Anyway, it is B of A. I banked with them for 6 whole months about 15 years ago. Never again.

[ObscurePen]

Wow. A nationwide outage. That is pretty bad. The reason why you can't remember the entire blockchain being down is because it has never happened and cannot happen. Such a phenomenon can only occur if every single node in the world went down. And that is a huge task, basically impossible.

Maybe this will cause the American government to rethink rejecting Bitcoin adoption. Maybe they may change to a decentralised system. Who knows?

[CryptoBry]

Incident like this is adding to the many jittery and stress the people have been experiencing lately. Anyway, I am sure this can just be an isolated incident and things can get back to their feet soon. Now, I am wondering if this is not a telltale sign telling us that maybe it is really time to adopt the blockchain technology as it can make the country stronger and better for the possible bleak future.

[GreenBits]

Incident like this is adding to the many jittery and stress the people have been experiencing lately. Anyway, I am sure this can just be an isolated incident and things can get back to their feet soon. Now, I am wondering if this is not a telltale sign telling us that maybe it is really time to adopt the blockchain technology as it can make the country stronger and better for the possible bleak future.

this is the result of the level of centralization we accept in our banking institutions. and they have fealty to the shareholders legally, not to us. if another person controls the "keys", so to speak, it up to them to decide when you get access to your funds. this is the most effective way in modern society; we are so cashless that its enough to simply close the access portal; you dont even have to shutter the doors of the institution. i dont think this was that, this was probably some platform code issue type shit, but this should be a teaching moment.

be your own bank

[jorneyflair]

Can't believe that such a big bank would have an issue like that. Did it say what was the reason for locking and freezing all of their accounts, because the bank definitely needs to have a reason to justify themselves pulling a move like that.

On the other side, this strengths how useful cryptocurrencies actually are since they never have issues like this. Our blockchain will never go down since the only reason for it going down would be due to a hack, and our blockchain is unhackable.

Bitcoin, once again, comes out on top.

[digaran]

Wow. A nationwide outage. That is pretty bad. The reason why you can't remember the entire blockchain being down is because it has never happened and cannot happen. Such a phenomenon can only occur if every single node in the world went down. And that is a huge task, basically impossible.

Maybe this will cause the American government to rethink rejecting Bitcoin adoption. Maybe they may change to a decentralised system. Who knows?

Why would they remove themselves from the position of power and control? like they ever agree to nuclear disarming themselves? it's not up to government to use Bitcoin or crypto in general for their people because once something is decentralized if a gov enters the system will be left vulnerable to the outside world, other parties, but change the code to give them access to the system and they might be interested.

[cafucafucafu]

In an apparent nationwide system outage, Bank of America customers have been shut out from accessing their accounts and online banking on Wednesday afternoon. As of 4pm ET the outage was continuing with most online systems still frozen.

On Downdetector.com reports starting spiking after 11:30 a.m. and the website was inundated with comments from Bank of America customers around the country saying they couldn’t access online banking from their applications or computers, transfer money or deposit money or checks.

Coral Springs resident Eric Sleeper told the Miami Herald that he received what looked like a phishing email from the bank Wednesday and immediately called customer service to see if something was wrong. A message on his online account said it could not pull up his information. When he called his local branch, a manager said that local managers were all calling each other trying to figure out what caused what now seems like a national outage and why they were unable to provide certain services.

Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens told the Herald that the bank is aware of the issues with mobile and online banking and is working to fix the problem. Bauwens added that many of the customers who were experiencing difficulties now have accounts that are operating normally.

“I know that the team is working quickly to bring everything back up. As time progresses they should be able to go back online,” Bauwens said.

When asked what caused the outage, Bauwens said she “did not have that information.”

Surprisingly, nobody has yet voiced the theory that it was Russia's crack hackers who are responsible.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, users across the country were reporting issues accessing their accounts.

“@BankofAmerica system wide outage on the day I’m closing on my house and there is nothing they can do about it,” tweeted Twitter user @CapricornLove7.

“The clerk at @BankofAmerica just said I can't make a deposit [because] if [sic] a nationwide disruption. Anyone know what's up?,” tweeted user @Henkenius.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-19/nationwide-outage-hits-bank-america-customers-unable-access-accounts

Interesting news to me. Wonder what happened. Brings to mind the blockchain debate. Some believe using a centralized backend database is superior to distributed blockchain ledgers. Although there have been times when transfer fees were high from a historical perspective. I can't remember many times when the blockchain was down in its entirety.

Another win for the people for bitcoin and for the people who support freedom for money. I would expect a small rise in price for bitcoin due to this,

Another time when centralization makes a mistake, further strengthing my point of we need to make bitcoin mainstream. The block chain never encounters problems like this and that is why crypto currencies are more safer and more convenient that regular Fiat currencies. But likely not to happen since the goverment would never allow something that they can't control to become so powerful.

PS: what caused this breakdown by the banks.

[Przemax]

Can't believe that such a big bank would have an issue like that. Did it say what was the reason for locking and freezing all of their accounts, because the bank definitely needs to have a reason to justify themselves pulling a move like that.

It was a Bank of America, so it was a propaganda attack 100% because of name like that. Either it was done as a propaganda made by the enemies of USA government or it was the banking cartel itself. Maybe they are testing the behaviour of the people, of how fast such an information is spreading, who is spreading and what are its effects. If effects are none they have nothing to fear when something bigger will happen.

If it was a fault of some foreign hackers, we can assume they wanted to make a warding shots with a message - stay away, or else. Either way, that sittuation was not for real, and just a test of some future possible major action.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Having Chinese miners delay confirmations for 48 hours or more isn't exactly preferable to this, just saying.   And in practice there is no difference.  

Not the first time a bank's website has been hacked or gone down.  Business as usual.