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A ransomware attack on BridgePay Network Solutions on Feb. 6, 2026, caused payment processing disruptions across the U.S., affecting merchants, local governments, and service providers.
The outage temporarily forced some businesses to rely on cash-only transactions while payment services were unavailable.
“No card data was compromised and any file that may have been accessed was encrypted,” said the company in its incident notification.
What Happened in the BridgePay Outage
BridgePay provides core payment gateway infrastructure for thousands of merchants and municipal entities, making its availability critical to everyday commercial and public-sector operations.
When the platform went offline, restaurants, retailers, and government billing portals were immediately affected, highlighting how tightly payment processors are integrated into both private business workflows and public services.
BridgePay said the outage disrupted multiple systems, including its Gateway API, virtual terminal, reporting tools, hosted payment pages, and merchant onboarding portals — effectively preventing many customers from processing electronic transactions.
The impact quickly extended beyond individual merchants. Florida’s City of Palm Bay announced that its online billing portal was unavailable due to the BridgePay outage and advised residents to make payments in person.
Other organizations reporting disruptions included Lightspeed Commerce, ThriftTrac, and the City of Frisco, Texas, illustrating how an outage at a single payment provider can cascade across multiple sectors and jurisdictions.
Early signs of trouble appeared around 3:29 a.m. EST, when customers began reporting degraded performance.
By 5:48 a.m., BridgePay confirmed a system-wide outage, initially without identifying a root cause.
Roughly an hour later, the company disclosed that it was investigating a cybersecurity incident with support from internal teams, external cybersecurity specialists, and federal law enforcement.
By midday, BridgePay said its systems remained unavailable and confirmed it was working with federal forensic teams to assess and remediate affected environments.
At approximately 7:08 p.m. EST, the company confirmed that ransomware was responsible for the disruption.
According to BridgePay, preliminary forensic analysis indicated that attackers encrypted files within its environment but did not access or exfiltrate payment card data.
The company stated there was no evidence of usable data exposure, noting that the affected files were rendered unreadable through encryption.
As of publication, BridgePay had not identified the ransomware group involved or disclosed whether a ransom demand had been made.
Reducing Risk From Payment Disruptions
Payment processing outages can disrupt business operations and public services, often requiring organizations to adjust quickly when systems become unavailable.
Because incidents involving ransomware or third-party providers may occur with limited notice, advance planning helps reduce downtime and operational impact.
An effective response relies on both technical controls and well-defined procedures for continuity, recovery, and communication.
- Establish contingency plans for payment disruptions, including alternative processing methods and clear customer communication procedures.
- Harden backup and recovery processes using segmented, immutable, or offline backups to withstand ransomware encryption attempts.
- Limit and monitor administrative access by enforcing least privilege, just-in-time access, and multi-factor authentication for critical systems.
- Segment payment infrastructure and critical services to reduce blast radius and prevent lateral movement during an incident.
- Maintain continuous monitoring and alerting for anomalous system behavior, encryption activity, and service degradation.
- Strengthen third-party risk management by assessing payment providers’ security posture, recovery capabilities, and incident notification commitments.
- Regularly test incident response and business continuity plans through tabletop and technical exercises, including encryption-only ransomware scenarios.
Together, these measures help limit the blast radius of payment incidents while building operational resilience and recovery readiness.
The Ripple Effects of Payment System Outages
The BridgePay incident shows how an outage at a single payment provider can affect both businesses and public services, even without card data exposure.
As payment ecosystems become more interconnected, organizations should plan for disruptions caused by ransomware or third-party failures.
Limiting impact depends on reducing blast radius through segmentation, access controls, and reliable recovery processes, supported by well-tested continuity plans.
This approach aligns with zero-trust solutions that reduce implicit trust and limit impact.
