While early reports from several publications claimed the website of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) was taken offline because of a cybersecurity attack, the truth may be a lot less dramatic. The banks website was offline from Tuesday night until the early hours of Thursday as IT teams worked to solve the issue.
Four people with knowledge of the matter told TechCabal that the downtime was caused by a problem with the websites domain name system (DNS) configuration.
They had issues with their domain name registration, and they had to make some changes or move it to a different domain name service, a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at one of Nigerias biggest fintechs told TechCabal. He asked not to be named so he could speak freely.
Those comments suggest that GTBank forgot to renew ownership of its domain name.It may have presented an opportunity for unknown persons to buy the domain name in the hope that the company would be willing to pay a significant amount.
