Advisors are likely waking up to messages warning of difficulty logging into custodial platforms and their other technology providers Friday morning.
Major media outlets are reporting that a global technology outage, currently being blamed on a flawed software update for Microsoft operating systems from cybersecurity giant Crowdstrike.
A message on the login screen of Schwab Advisor services warned that “due to a third-party, global, industry-wide issue, advisors may have difficulty logging in to Schwab Advisor Center, and certain online functionality may be intermittently slow or unavailable.”
The message also warned that data file delivery is delayed and that there may be long phone hold times, suggesting that firms with urgent needs should contact their service or trading teams.
A spokesperson for Orion Advisor Solutions, which is a major provider of many types of technology to advisory firms has worked to ensure that their systems are up and running normally and warned that certain functionality may be intermittently slow, but that the company “is working expeditiously to correct any issues as they arise.”
Advisory firms are experiencing issues related to the outage but it remains difficult to ascertain just how widespread those are at this time.
“We’re aware of multiple firms having to rely on manual processes for transactions and data management,” said Scott Lamont, a managing director for the technology consultancy F2 Strategy.
“Those are slow processes and force the prioritization of critical, market sensitive or financial impacting processes over experience-related ones like client reporting, for example,” he said.
It appears that the outage has affected travel worldwide with major airlines and airports reporting ground holds. Many industry sectors from travel to media to healthcare rely on Crowdstrike.
According to Bloomberg, bankers around the world were caught up in the outage, with some unable to log onto their computer systems and others unable to make trades.
Staffers at JPMorgan Chase, Nomura Holdings and Bank of America were unable to log on to their firms’ systems Friday, with many met with a blue error screen.
George Kurtz, the chief executive of CrowdStrike, said the cause had been identified and isolated and was not a security incident or cyberattack, according to reporting by The New York Times. He said a fix had been sent out, but warned it could take some time to implement.
Crowdstrke posted details to its blog, last updated at 09:22 ET this morning, stating that the problems resulted from a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack.” It provided additional information and technical details, as well as workaround instructions for those being affected.
This is a breaking news story, and we will update it as new information becomes available.
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