Barclays online cockup

The bank that likes to say "have a look at someone else's account"

By Andrew Thomas • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 31st July 2000 17:57 GMT

Free whitepaper – PowerEdge M-Series blades I/O guide

One of the UK's largest banks has shut down its Internet banking operation following at least four security breaches earlier today.

Four of Barclays Online million plus users were confronted with financial details of other customers when they logged in this morning. The service had been upgraded over the weekend and it appears that the problem occurred when two or more users logged in at precisely the same moment.

Two of the users phoned Barclays to point out the problem, but the others decided it would be more fun to tip off the BBC instead.

The new system was shut down and its predecessor brought back online. The bank says only four out of 85,000 customers who used the service were able to view other people's accounts and insisted that they would not have been able to carry out any unauthorised transactions.

Barclays is no stranger to shooting itself in the foot.

In March it was revealed that Barclays' chief executive, Matthew Barrett, had been paid £1.3m for three months' work.

A few weeks later it closed almost 200 branches in rural areas leaving some towns and villages with no banking facilities. The bank was also one of the leading contenders to introduce charges to customers of other banks for using its network of ATMs. ®