Abbey has online glitch

by Gill Montia

Story link: Abbey has online glitch

In the latter part of last week, Abbey experienced some difficulties with its online banking, which meant that some of its account holders logged on to see details relating to other customers.

Site users were shown their own name but with the account details of an entirely different customer. Some reported that they could see details of all accounts held by another account holder and had access to their transaction history.

According to Abbey the incident represented more of a presentational error than a security risk and the bank has stressed that the data could not be used to compromise customer accounts.

The bank maintains that only random data could be viewed, none of which related to a specific customer.

Despite these reassurances, some of those online at the time the problem occurred reported that the details accessed were so comprehensive that it would have been possible to make transfers from other people’s account.

The glitch has been attributed to networking problems. Abbey is satisfied that its security alerts worked satisfactorily and the system has now been restored.