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A four-day computer outage at National Savings and Investments has been blamed on a “technical issue” that caused a flood of customers to have their accounts locked.
It is not known how many of its 24 million customers were unable to log in to access savings accounts and premium bonuses on Saturday, but hundreds reported they were still locked out until yesterday, when the issue was resolved.
Despite speculation that the major IT problem was caused by a cyberattack, the government-backed savings giant is convinced this was not behind the chaos caused to customers.
NS&I initially blamed heavy online traffic and system upgrades, but later admitted a technical problem.
NS&I introduced two-factor authentication into its account login process two years ago as an extra layer of security to try to prevent hackers from stealing data. Customers now receive a unique access code sent to their mobile phone to log into their account.
Failure: A four-day computer outage at National Savings and Investments caused a flood of customers to have their accounts locked
NS&I on Saturday morning prevented Tina Deeming, 64, from Loughborough, Leicestershire, from accessing vital funds by collecting £500 in premium bonds.
The retired IT consultant says: ‘I received a message saying there were intermittent login issues. I tried many times over the weekend and got very frustrated because I need money for groceries and rent.’
At lunchtime yesterday, customers trying to log in were still being greeted with a message: “We are aware of an intermittent issue with our website when logging in and we are working hard to fix it.” Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.’
Eddie Ferguson, 77, a retired IT manager from Stockport, Greater Manchester, was also one of many who contacted us to report a problem after trying to log in on four separate days.
Eddie says: ‘It’s pathetic. The idea of introducing double authentication to ensure the system is secure is great, but only if it actually works.’
The length of the delay possibly indicates a more serious problem, related to a computer system failure or a cyber attack.’
NS&I declined to comment on how many customers were unable to log in. He said some problems may also have been caused by “time drift.”
This occurs when the device you are using to log in, such as a laptop, is not synced with the mobile phone to which an authentication code is sent.
To resolve this, it suggests you check the date and time settings on your phone and make sure it is up to date.
toby.walne@dailymail.co.uk