Universal Credit website outage locked millions out of accounts
MILLIONS of hard-up Brits were locked out of their Universal Credit journals this morning due to a mass internet outage.
The whole of Gov.uk was also affected meaning users couldn't access help, advice or log in to any government gateway accounts.
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The server outage also caused Amazon, Reddit, Spotify and HMRC to fall offline too for a few hours this morning.
When users visited the Government web page to log on to see their journal, they were greeted with an "Error 303" message telling them "service unavailable".
However, as of midday today the service is back up and running.
It's unclear what caused the outage though it's suspected that the fault lies with Fastly.
Fastly, a data centre provider, crashed earlier this morning and has said it is currently investigating the issue, which it calls a "global disruption".
More than 6million struggling Brits are relying on Universal Credit as of January 2021 - a 98% increased since March 2020.
People on the new digital welfare system manage their accounts through online journals.
This is where they discuss any upcoming problems or queries with their Jobcentre work coach.
Users also rely on the accounts to let them know how much money to expect in their next payment and how many deductions have been taken.
A DWP spokesperson told The Sun the outage was part of a "wider issue affecting a number of other websites."
"We are investigating this as a matter of urgency," they said.
What's going on?
The disruption has hit hundreds of major websites, including Twitch, Pinterest, eBay, PayPal, Depop and the FT.
It's not clear exactly what has caused some of the largest websites to crash today but it is believed that they are all running on the same server.
It is suspected that the outage is something to do with Fastly, which also went offline earlier today.
The data centre provider, which runs a service designed to speed up loading times for websites, crashed earlier this morning.
Its service requires it to sit between its clients and their users, meaning any wide-scale failure is likely to block visitors from their web pages.
The San Francisco-based company has given no indication as to when it expected its services to be fully restored.
The Sun has reached out to Fastly for comment.
Now that the service is back up and running, you should check out our guide to logging into your Universal Credit account and what you can do through your journal.
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