Industry News: ESG5

The Target: Giant loan and mortgage company LoanDepot

The Take: The stolen LoanDepot customer data includes names, dates of birth, email and postal addresses, financial account numbers, and phone numbers. The stolen data also includes Social Security numbers, which LoanDepot collected from customers.

The Vector: LoanDepot was hit by a cyberattack around January 4 that it described at the time as involving the “encryption of data,” or a ransomware attack. It’s not known if LoanDepot paid a ransom.

This breach highlights the extreme importance of timely software updates for known software vulnerabilities, not only in systems directly under a firm’s control, but in third-party systems the firm relies upon as well. The longer a firm, or its vendors, hold out on deploying the most up-to-date software for their systems, the greater the chance an attacker will exploit the issue.

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