Another day, another mortgage industry cyber attack.
This time, it’s LoanDepot, one of the nation’s largest residential nonbank lenders. Concerns first arose over the weekend, when difficulties using LoanDepot’s online payment portal or phone lines led customers to take their inquiries to X (formerly Twitter). LoanDepot used the social network to respond to customer concerns with the revelation of a “cyber incident” and apologize for the inconvenience.
Those posts have since been taken down, although the company has since confirmed that a breach took place over the weekend. According to a report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Irvine, California-based firm first identified an “incident affecting certain of the company’s systems,” leading it to take steps to contain the cyber incursion, notify regulators and law enforcement, and contact “leading cybersecurity experts” to assist its investigation.
The filing notes that the unauthorized third-party activity included access to the encryption of data, with LoanDepot shutting down “certain systems” and “implement[ing] measures to secure its business operations” in response. The company has posted a “cyber incident update” page on its website; as of Jan. 8, the page verified that certain systems remain offline and that LoanDepot is “working diligently to restore normal business operations as quickly as possible.”
LoanDepot is just the latest in a string of prominent mortgage-related companies that have suffered a data breach in recent months. Mr. Cooper dealt with a major cybersecurity breach of its own in late October, an attack that placed millions of people’s financial data in jeopardy and, in its aftermath, kept Mr. Cooper’s systems offline for days. Fidelity National Financial, which provides title insurance, escrow and settlement services to the real estate industry, was targeted in November, and First American Financial Corp., the mortgage sector’s largest title insurance underwriter, reported last week that it was the victim of a December attack.
