After Brett's post the other day which posed the question: "what if the internet is your bank?", I was quite amused just now, as I loaded Citibank's homepage and nothing loaded.
Nothing at all.
Nowt.
Nada.
Zero.
Nothing.
Why so?
Because I use an add-on in Firefox called NoScript.
NoScript describes itself as the "best security you can get in a web browser! Allow active content to run only from sites you trust, and protect
yourself against XSS and Clickjacking attacks."
The only problem is that it results in screens like this:
No big deal, but made me laugh.
What is not so laughable is if you really do depend on internet access to get to your bank, and you can't access it. Hello Bank of America ...
January 29th 2010
The Bank of America website is down since morning. Bank of America's main page is still not accessible as of now. The Bank of America website could be down due to cyber-attack, but it might just be a technical glitch.
If you are trying to access your BofA online banking account, you can follow the Official Bank of America help account on Twtter (@BofA_Help) for updates.
The website is still functional if visitor enter through specific pages. For example, the Bank of America "About" page could be accessed without problem. Once in the website, you can navigate through the website normally.
UPDATE-1: The BoA website is back online.
UPDATE-2 (1:52 PST): The website seems unstable now, and have gone offline again.
UPDATE-3 (3:39 PST): BoA has ruled out a cyber attack but is still trying to identify the cause.
Hmmm ... cyberattacks work I guess. According to informed sources, this was a Denial of Service attack, but BoA aren't letting on. They haven't made any official statements about the cause ... and why would they as it either shows weakness of security or might encourage similar attacks in the future.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
