JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo Customers Report Cascade of Failures As Banks Hammered by Massive Computer Outage

US banks are scrambling to recover from a massive computer outage that’s disrupting financial transactions around the world.

Customers at JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are reporting major, ongoing outages, according to the network tracking service DownDetector.

The historic outage, which has hammered banks, airlines and scores of other businesses, was triggered by the billion-dollar cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, whose software is utilized on a global scale.

The issue sparked the infamous “blue screen of death” failure on Windows computers, and Microsoft says it’s working to get people back online.

“Yesterday, CrowdStrike released an update that began impacting IT systems globally. We are aware of this issue and are working closely with CrowdStrike and across the industry to provide customers technical guidance and support to safely bring their systems back online.”

Customers at major US banks are reporting login issues, online transfer issues and issues with deposits.

The outage has also impacted trading at JPMorgan Chase, reports the New York Times.

“Employees at companies including JPMorgan Chase and Instinet, a brokerage firm owned by the Japanese bank Nomura, had trouble gaining access to their work stations, according to people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. That led to delays in some trades as the companies rushed to find workarounds, the people said.”

The trading delays appeared to be resolved as of an hour ago.

Although CrowdStrike says the issue is not a hack and a fix has been rolled out, the outage sent the company’s stock spiraling as much as 15% in a matter of hours. The stock is now down more than 11% at time of publishing.

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