As if real estate conveyancers and title insurance companies did not have enough to worry about, they now face a growing threat that has dire financial consequences.  Hackers are acquiring information by infiltrating and monitoring emails of the real estate community. They learn who the parties are to the transaction, the amount of the purchase, the date of the closing, and most importantly, if any of the funds are being wired. Once the information is learned, the hacker generates an identity very similar to one of the parties involved in the transaction.

 

Hackers are targeting not only the real estate conveyancers, but also the real estate agents who are involved in the transaction. The unprotected emails of the realtors are compromised by the hacker. From there, the hackers can monitor the information being exchanged and learn the information they will later need to set up the fake email account. 

 

In an effort to combat these hacker attacks, there are a number of measures designed to increase security. Such measures include: avoid web-based email accounts such as yahoo or gmail to transmit business communications; secure your wireless network; change computer passwords regularly; keep virus and firewall software up to date; and most importantly, in the event there is a change in wire instructions during a transaction, call the receiver of the wire directly and verify the requested change.   Click  HERE  to read on. 

Blockchain to the rescue

Current mortgage systems lack the ability to preserve proof of compliance since they are designed as manufacturing, checklist or document collection technologies. They were not designed to "preserve" the data, documents, rules, decisions and state of the loan. But imagine the results if each loan could be preserved at the point of every decision. New rules engines could be created to monitor compliance, and lenders would be able to perfectly recreate each loan at any time in the future.   Click  HERE  to read on.