Teething troubles for new SingPass

Teething troubles for new SingPass

The SingPass website was down yesterday morning, a day after the system rolled out an upgrade.

It left users who wanted to sign up for the new SingPass, which features stronger security capabilities and an improved user interface, unable to log in to do so.

A message on the SingPass website said maintenance was in progress and apologised for inconvenience caused.

By noon, the website was back online and users were able to log in to verify their details and sign up for the enhanced SingPass.

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), which manages SingPass, said the enhanced system experienced high volume of traffic around 10am.

"While the bandwidth had been increased three-fold to manage the expected influx of visitors to the newly-launched site, the actual traffic this morning surged to almost 12-fold," said an IDA spokesman.

"This resulted in users experiencing intermittent access to government e-services."

ENHANCED SECURITY

The new SingPass was launched on Sunday. Its enhanced security features include two-factor authentication to better protect sensitive transactions.

Users have to go to www.singpass.gov.sg and log in first to verify their details and sign up for the new SingPass.

Under this system, users will log in with their username and SingPass as usual. But when they perform sensitive transactions, they will also have to input a one-time password which will be sent to their mobile phones, or generated through a token.


This article was first published on July 7, 2015.
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