Target Says An Internal Bug Caused Nationwide Register Outage

On Saturday, June 15, retailer Target experienced a register outage at its stores across the entire United States, leaving customers stranded with no way to pay for their items. The outage, by all accounts, happened at the same time at stores throughout the nation, causing confusion and, in some cases, forcing the stores to shut down entirely. Fortunately, the issue wasn't the result of malware.

In a statement issued by Target Corporate, the company revealed that its register outage was caused by an 'internal technology issue' that has since been fixed. The bug caused the registers to stop working for around two hours, during which time some stores closed entirely and others remain open in limbo, waiting to get word on how long a fix would take.

The company said that it has conducted an initial review that was 'thorough' in nature, and as such can state that there wasn't any sort of data breach or other security issue behind the outage. Guests do not need to worry about whether their data was compromised (because it wasn't), and there are no actions customers need to take.

The outage happened at an unfortunate time — right before Father's Day when shoppers were trying to pick up last-minute gifts. It provided a unique look at the fallout resulting from a simple bug capable of impacting widespread infrastructure, though thankfully one that ultimately had very little impact on society beyond the doors of the nearest Target store.

Target has around 1,800 stores in the United States, and many complaints from customers appeared on Saturday directed at the retailer. The company has apologized for the inconvenience of the matter and stresses that the technical issue — which was never detailed — has been resolved.

Image via Target Corporate