J.P. Morgan Wrestles Web Snarl
By Dan Fitzpatrick
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. struggled Wednesday to restore electronic access to its online banking service, marking the third consecutive day of Internet interruptions and public-relations problems for the nation's second-largest bank by assets.
The bank late Wednesday offered its most detailed explanation for the outage: That a third party vendor's database software corrupted the log-in process. The bank said no customer data was at risk and all other methods of banking, by telephone or ATMs, performed well.
"We apologize for the recent difficulties customers experienced with Chase.com," a spokesman said. "We will work with customers to refund any fees that were incurred as a result of this problem."
The delays, combined with the bank's initial muted reaction, sparked a backlash among consumers upset about the disruption and scant explanation, until Wednesday evening, for what went wrong....
Added University of California Berkeley computer science [and information] professor Doug Tygar: "Between the inconvenience and the uncertainty I think they are facing a real customer problem."...
"That makes me think there is more to the story," added Mr. Tygar, the University of California at Berkeley professor. And "if they have so much trouble with a software failure, what happens with an actual attack?"...