As mortgage lender LoanDepot continues its recovery efforts from a ransomware attack, it revealed on Monday that hackers stole the data of more than 16 million customers. A Securities and Exchange Commission filings from the mortgage lender, did not detail what information the hackers breached, only that “an unauthorized third party gained access to sensitive personal information.”
LoanDepot first announced that it was the victim of an attack on January 8th. The company took some of its IT systems offline, but faced this. slow recovery. Customers took to social media to complain about payment problems, difficulty accessing their accounts and even difficulty closing mortgage deals. On Friday, nearly two weeks after LoanDepot first spoke about the incident, systems such as customer portals and other internal sites were back online. It appears that LoanDepot has been the victim of a ransomware attack, where hackers demand money in exchange for access or information. reports from TechCrunch.
“Unfortunately, we live in a world where these types of attacks are becoming more frequent and sophisticated, and our industry has failed to do so. We sincerely regret any impact on our customers,” said LoanDepot CEO Frank Martell.
However, the true consequences of the attack are still emerging. LoanDepot did not comment further or explain what type of sensitive data was discovered. It said it would offer free credit monitoring and identity protection services to affected customers. It should be noted that three more large financial institutions – Mr. Cooper’s Group, Fidelity National Financial, First American Finance — has been subjected to cyber attacks in recent months.
