Stamford-headquartered Webster said in a written statement Friday evening that, "today's global technology outage is resulting in accessibility issues for some Webster clients. We are working to resolve any technology access issues our clients may be experiencing as quickly as possible." Then, in a statement issued on Monday afternoon, the company said, "all of the issues have been successfully resolved. As an added precaution, we continued to closely monitor to ensure full functionality for our clients over the weekend."
Neither statement provided details about the accessibility issues. But the company has scheduled a call on Tuesday morning to discuss its latest quarterly results, so it is possible that executives will provide more information then about the outage's impact.
The problems experienced by Webster customers showed some of the disruption in Connecticut that was unleashed by a faulty update sent out by Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike that affected computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems. Other sectors such as health care and transportation, as well as numerous local and state government agencies, were also affected. By Friday afternoon, however, a number of Connecticut-based organizations hit by the outage started posting updates about the resumption of operations.
"This massive tech outage shows just how reliant we are on this software and service vendors," Fred Scholl, director of the graduate cybersecurity program at Quinnipiac University, said in a statement. "I am certain we will continue to see more of this kind of stuff happening. It is the world we live in ... Going forward, we all need to make sure we have pen and paper back home to keep our lives in order."
It will take time to fully assess the in-state impact of the tech meltdown. As of 4:30 p.m. Monday, no outage-related complaints had been reported to the state departments of banking and consumer protection or the state attorney general's office, according to spokespersons for those organizations. But it is not uncommon for consumer complaints to be submitted several days or even some number of weeks after an incident.
In addition to potential complaints sent to public officials, serious technology issues also often lead to litigation. Last year, several customers filed lawsuits against Webster related to a data breach in late 2022 that affected more than 150,000 customers in Connecticut.
"It's a third-party vendor that we use for fraud monitoring that experienced the data-security incident and had the release of our information," Webster CEO and Chairman John Ciulla said during an earnings call in April 2023. "We've communicated with regulators and clients. None of our systems were impacted. And we believe that there'll be no material financial impact to Webster, with respect to all aspects of putting that behind us."
As of 4:30 p.m. Monday, no outage-related complaints had been filed against Webster in federal court, according to court records.
Following the completion in early 2022 of its merger with Pearl River, New York-based Sterling National Bank, Webster ranks as the largest bank headquartered in Connecticut, based on deposits. As of June 30, 2023, its in-state deposits totaled nearly $33 billion. It ranked No. 2 in that category, after Bank of America, which is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Some other large financial-services companies headquartered in Connecticut said in statements last Friday that the outage had not significantly affected their operations. Stamford-based Synchrony, the country's largest provider of store-brand and private-label credit cards, said it, "had minimal customer impacts due to the CrowdStrike software update incident." At Greenwich-based online brokerage Interactive Brokers Group, all systems, "are currently 100 percent functional and operating normally." Norwalk-based FactSet, a provider of financial information and analytics, said, "we have confirmed that we do not have any systems using CrowdStrike and are not affected."
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