Capitec Bank Hit by Nationwide Outage Due to Global Cybersecurity Platform Glitch

Capitec Bank experienced a major nationwide outage on July 19, 2024, due to a global issue caused by cybersecurity platform provider Crowdstrike. The glitch resulted in widespread disruptions to banking services, but Capitec swiftly restored operations and assured customers that their accounts remained secure. On July 19, 2024, Capitec Bank faced a significant nationwide outage, leaving customers unable to access various banking services. The disruption was traced back to a global problem caused by a cybersecurity platform provider, Crowdstrike. The incident, which affected numerous organizations worldwide, was linked to a “content deployment” that triggered the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) boot loop on Windows computers.

Crowdstrike confirmed that the content deployment was responsible for the issue, which led to several hours of downtime for Capitec and other institutions. Capitec quickly addressed the problem, restoring its banking services by Friday morning. The bank apologized for the inconvenience caused and reassured customers that their bank accounts and personal details remained secure and unaffected by the incident.

“Since early this morning, clients have faced difficulties accessing various banking services, including online banking, mobile app transactions, and card payments,” Capitec stated. “Our tech team has worked quickly to resolve the problem — we are pleased to report that all our banking has now been fully restored.”

The outage began around 07:00, with customers reporting issues with mobile banking, online banking, and ATM services. Many took to social media to express frustration over declined transactions, unresponsive ATMs, and inaccessible mobile apps. Outage tracking website Downdetector showed a significant surge in reports related to Capitec’s services during this time.

Capitec acknowledged the issue while it was ongoing and communicated with customers via SMS to inform them of the problem and the steps being taken to resolve it. “Client service remains our top priority, and we deeply regret the severe impact this disruption has had on your banking experience,” the bank added. “We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused and appreciate your patience and understanding during this challenging time.”

The problem was not isolated to Capitec alone. The BSOD boot loop affected numerous organizations, including airports, television news stations, financial institutions, emergency services, and various other industries globally. Major institutions such as Sky News in the UK, ABC in Australia, and the London Stock Exchange reported problems due to the Crowdstrike issue.

Crowdstrike later provided a workaround for system administrators to recover impacted systems, although this required physical access to each machine. The workaround involved a series of steps to fix the issue individually on each affected computer.

Coincidentally, the widespread blue screen issues followed Microsoft’s resolution of a cloud services outage that had impacted flight operations in the US the previous night. Microsoft reported that a configuration change in a portion of its Azure backend workloads caused connectivity failures that affected downstream Microsoft 365 services.

Despite the global scale of the problem, Capitec’s rapid response and effective communication helped mitigate the impact on its customers, ensuring that their financial data remained secure and restoring trust in its services.