Cyber Incident Keeps $1.14B Hilltop Bank’s Digital Banking Offline For a Week
By CU Today Staff —
CASPER, Wyo.—Customers of $1.14-billion Hilltop National Bank have been without online and mobile banking for more than a week after a cybersecurity incident forced the Wyoming bank to take its systems offline, disrupting payments and limiting customers’ access to their money, according to news reports.
Hilltop’s IT systems began experiencing problems Sept. 8, and the bank determined overnight that it was dealing with a cybersecurity incident, according to the bank and reporting by American Banker and Cowboy State Daily. The bank disconnected both its primary and backup systems as a precaution.
Hilltop has gradually restored some operations, with seven of its eight offices reopening for limited transactions by Monday and ATMs returning to service, but online and mobile banking remained unavailable and the bank had not provided a timetable for full restoration. Debit-card transactions have been limited to $1,000 per day. Hilltop initially told customers that payments scheduled through the bank—including mortgage, auto and credit-card payments—would not be sent while its systems were offline, although payments pulled directly by lenders would continue.
Hilltop has pledged to reimburse customers for late charges or fees incurred because the cyber incident prevented transactions from being completed.
The bank has disclosed little about the nature of the attack. It has not said whether the incident involved malware, stolen credentials or another form of intrusion, whether customer data was accessed or removed, or whether an extortion demand was made.
The outage has also produced secondary problems. Hilltop warned customers that scammers have been spoofing the telephone number of the call center it established after the incident and urged customers not to answer incoming calls displaying that number. The disruption has affected business and government customers as well: Cowboy State Daily reported that the town of Bar Nunn, which uses Hilltop for payroll, had to work with the bank to ensure employees could be paid.
Originally reported by CU Today.