Schwab website still on the fritz

The Charles Schwab Corp. said today that its website is continuing to have intermittent access problems following a cyberattack but that no client data or accounts have been compromised. The denial-of-service attack was noticed right before the market close yesterday and the website remained blocked for almost two hours, the company said. Phone access was available yesterday, “although for a brief time immediately before the market close call, volumes were high,” Schwab said in a statement today. “It impacted access to our website but did not impact client data or accounts,” spokesman Greg Gable wrote in an e-mail. Registered investment adviser firms that custody at Schwab were affected, as well. Tim Hatton, president of Hatton Consulting Inc., thought he had internet problems at his home office yesterday when trying to access Schwab’s system, but he then realized the site was down. “It wasn’t a pressing matter, so I waited a while and [the Schwab site] was up again,” Mr. Hatton said. “I wasn’t ever aware an attack was going on.” Mr. Hatton has not tried to place any trades today. David Marotta, president of Marotta Wealth Management Inc., was forced to call Schwab’s equity trading desk late Tuesday to get some equity orders placed. But “the mutual fund desk was absolutely swamped,” he said, so his fund orders had to be postponed until today. “It must be a nightmare internally” for Schwab personnel, said Mr. Marotta, who hasn’t yet had to place any trades today. Messages on Twitter from Schwab Advisor Services today recommended that advisers try to log in again if they are experiencing access issues, or call the company at (800) 435-4000 for urgent matters. Access is now available through all channels, Mr. Gable said today, although intermittent blockages continue from what the company believes is a cyberattack. “A denial-of-service attack is an attempt to disrupt normal access to a website perpetrated by a third party,” Mr. Gable said.