By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Capitec Bank today experienced a service disruption that affected its entire customer base of 22 million individuals, leaving them unable to access banking services.
Downdetector.co.za showed on Friday that thousands of users have complained about not being able to access Capitec’s online services. The problems appear to have started at around 7am.
“We are currently experiencing nationwide service issues, affecting all services, “Capitec said in a post on X. “We are working hard to resolve this. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
Reuters, meanwhile, is reporting that a widespread IT outage is affecting Australian media, banks and telecommunications companies. The problems appear to relate to an issue at global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, spokesman for Australia’s home affairs minister said on Friday.
“I am aware of a large-scale technical outage affecting a number of companies and services across Australia this afternoon,” the office of Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness said in a post on X.
“Our current information is this outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies. There is no information to suggest it is a cybersecurity incident. We continue to engage across key stakeholders.”
Her statement did not mention Crowdstrike.
Microsoft users were also unable to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services on Friday morning. Earlier, a Microsoft cloud services outage grounded planes in the US.
“We’re investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” the company said in a social media post.
On its status page, Microsoft said that impacted services include Microsoft Teams, with users unable to use group chats and user registration. Other Microsoft 365 services are also affected.
In its most recent update, Microsoft said that its impacted services include but are not limited to the following:
- PowerBI: Users may notice that their service is in read-only mode while we address impact.
- Microsoft Fabric: Users may notice that their service is in read-only mode while we address impact.
- Microsoft Teams: Users may be unable to leverage Microsoft Teams functions, including presence, group chats, and user registration.
- Microsoft 365 admin centre: Admins may be intermittently unable to access the Microsoft 365 admin centre, and any action may be delayed if accessible.
“We’re continuing to see an improvement in service availability across multiple Microsoft 365 apps and services. We’re closely monitoring our telemetry data to ensure this upward trend continues as our mitigation actions continue to progress,” said Microsoft.