Banks, FBI Assessing Hack of Real Estate Finance Tech Vendor
(Bloomberg) — The hack of a technology vendor aimed at real estate financiers sent major American banks and mortgage lenders scrambling Sunday to assess whether they were affected by the data breach.
Seller SitusAMC Group Holdings (LP) said Saturday that someone compromised its systems and obtained customer data, including “accounting records and legal agreements.”
The company said it learned of the attack on Nov. 12 and was still evaluating the scope and impact of the breach with outside experts and federal law enforcement. SitusAMC said it sent letters to customers on Saturday stating that the firm was fully operational, that the breach was “now contained” and “did not involve encryption malware.”
JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to two people familiar with the matter. and Citigroup Inc. was among the banks that received such notifications. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing review of the breach, which is also being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Representatives for Citi and Chase declined to comment on whether or how their banks were affected. The breach and subsequent notifications to banks were first reported by the New York Times.
“The FBI is aware of a cyber incident involving a third-party provider in the financial services industry,” according to an FBI statement attributed to Director Kash Patel. “While we are working closely with affected organizations and our partners to understand the extent of potential impact, we have not identified any operational impacts to banking services.”
Another person familiar with the matter said SitusAMC has notified all residential mortgage customers that they may be affected but does not yet know the full extent of the breach. The contact said the company confirmed it had been hacked on November 15 and began notifying customers last week.
SitusAMC Chief Executive Officer Michael Franco said the breach was contained.
“We will continue to focus on analyzing potentially impacted data and will provide direct updates to our customers as our investigation progresses,” Franco said in a statement through a representative.
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