Fidelity National Financial (FNF), one of the largest providers of real estate insurance services and mortgage operations in the United States, fell victim to a cyber attack. In November of last year, hackers breached the company’s IT systems, gaining access to data belonging to 1.3 million customers.
Notably, it was a subsidiary of FNF, Loancare, one of the leading providers of loan services, that first discovered the unauthorized access to FNF systems. The company’s report reveals that the stolen information included names, addresses, social insurance numbers, and customer loan numbers.
As a result of the attack, FNF was forced to temporarily disable some of its IT systems, which had a significant impact on its real estate and mortgage services. Real estate agents, home buyers, and many others involved in transactions found themselves in difficult positions for several days, as the sale of real estate could not be completed.
The responsibility for the attack was claimed by the ALPHV (BlackCat) group, although they did not disclose any details about the stolen data. Following the attack, both the hacker group’s leakage site and its entire infrastructure were seized by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies during an international operation targeting cybercriminals.
Currently, Fidelity National Financial has refrained from categorizing the incident as an attack involving ransomware and has not responded to inquiries regarding the nature of the cyber incident.
In an updated report submitted to the SEC, FNF revealed additional details based on the findings of their investigation. It was determined that unauthorized access to the company’s systems was gained on November 20, 2023. However, there was no direct impact on customer systems. Fidelity National Financial has notified approximately 1.3 million affected customers whose data was compromised and has offered them assistance in protecting their personal and financial information.
The company has also reported facing several lawsuits related to this incident. Despite the situation, Fidelity remains confident that the incident will not have a significant impact on its financial standing, considering its net income of over $1 billion in 2022 and over $500 million in the current fiscal year.