Waterford, CT – Wednesday, July 19, 2023 – Online Banking at Charter Oak is back up and running! After the site was shut down Friday at 5 p.m., the credit union had teams working around the clock to get it back online. The shutdown was caused by nefarious individuals who targeted the credit union and created fake sites. While members were still able to bank at Charter Oak by calling or visiting any one of their 15 branches, members were unable to use their phones or computers to access the online banking site. As of tonight (Wednesday, July 19), the site is back online. Members can log in at charteroak.org. Passwords will need to be changed and two-step authentication will be required. In a live meeting with credit union members on Wednesday afternoon, CEO Brian Orenstein said that despite the disruption in online banking, data and funds were never at risk. “I can guarantee there is no loss of funds or data since this began,” Orenstein said. Also, no account numbers or social security numbers, or other personal information was taken. The only issue that some members should be concerned about is if they entered their information into one of the fake websites that cropped up after the legitimate site was shut down on Friday. If a member did so, they should call the credit union immediately. Any fees that were incurred as a result of the online banking disruption will be refunded, Orenstein said. Orenstein told credit union members that the credit union’s website would continue to remain down for the time being and may even be rebuilt. There will be a post-mortem done by a third party to look into what can be done differently so this type of incident never happens again, he said. You can watch Brian Orenstein's Q&A about the online banking outage here: Charter Oak Online Banking is Back After Disruption
https://fb.watch/lUaGWoXZMh/
