American Express users around the world, including the US, UK and Europe, experienced widespread outages lasting several hours yesterday. And, the payment services giant advises that some users may continue to experience problems online or over the phone.
Problems reported by users included being unable to log into their Amex accounts, make payments, or contact an Amex customer service representative by phone.
BleepingComputer was able to reproduce the issues briefly just before Amex confirmed partial restoration of services.
Two-factor authentication broken
American Express customers around the world were left without the means to make payments as hour-long outages prevented users from logging into their accounts.
The payment card service provider’s online systems went down on Friday April 1 and continued to malfunction for hours, as also observed by BleepingComputer.
Amex posted a banner on its homepage stating that it was “aware of technical difficulties” affecting phone lines, online account services and the Amex mobile app.
In several tests conducted by BleepingComputer, we observed that the login screen repeatedly prompted for a “one-time verification code”; with each successful login attempt, even if we log in from the same device previously used to access the account. The mobile app also exhibited this behavior:
(Computer Beep)
As services started to come back, BleepingComputer was able to move past the two-factor code screen after successful authentication to land on a “not found” page, where the dashboard should be.
Technologist Jacob Rothstein suspected the problems were related to the recent introduction of Amex”one login for all accountsThe new feature integration would allow customers to access both savings accounts and credit cards from a single dashboard, Amex previously announced.
But that still doesn’t explain the disruptions in phone service.
Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst Anise Haboubi It was speculated whether recent hacks on Okta, Sitel and Globant by Lapsus$ might have played a role – Sitel and Globant list Amex among their clients.
However, BleepingComputer has yet to see any hard evidence linking these incidents.
“Add Debit Card” took you to the ATM location map
Complaints of users having difficulty making payments on their Amex account balances have also been replicated by BleepingComputer.
When navigating to the “Make a payment” page, the payment history did not load. By clicking on the “Add debit card” button, we were redirected to a map of nearby ATMs.
As of this morning, Amex online account services allow payments via bank account, a newly introduced feature especially for UK customers, in addition to accepting debit card payments.
This indicates that the payments giant most likely broke something when rolling out the new feature, in terms of the online services outage.
‘Don’t do business without it.®’
On April 1, after several reports of customer issues, American Express confirmed that online account services were back on web and mobile:
However, in his last TweeterAmerican Express has backtracked and explains that some customers may still experience issues:
“We are experiencing a system issue that is preventing some cardholders from accessing products and services on the web and mobile app. Most systems have been restored, but some customers may be experiencing longer wait times than expected. “usual. We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience.”
The reason for these disturbances of several hours is not yet known. The impact on Amex phone lines, in addition to web and mobile application outages, makes this case particularly interesting.
While this could be another example of a network outage or broken feature integration, it’s not uncommon for call centers and corporate websites to go down at the same time. , following a cyberattack.