The title industry faces elevated cyber crime risks. Don’t assume you’re covered — make sure.
While data breaches remain a serious threat, the title and real estate industries face an even more elevated risk: wire fraud. Even as awareness has spread, wire fraud continues to cause devastating losses — and far too many agencies assume they’re covered when they’re not.
We’ve seen title agencies with E&O, Crime, and Cyber Liability policies — all of which excluded wire fraud claims. If you’re a victim, you deserve to actually be covered.
An escrow agent sent password-protected wire instructions by email. The closing agent then received a follow-up email — appearing to be from the escrow agent — with revised instructions pointing to a fraudulent account. The money was lost.
A title agent’s system was infected with ransomware. Hackers demanded $50,000 to restore access. Systems were inaccessible for 48 hours and normal operations could not be performed.
An escrow company fell victim to the Zeus virus, which stole online banking credentials and transferred $440,000 out of the escrow account to a foreign bank. Undetectable by most standard anti-virus software.