Information Security and Wire Transfer Fraud are critical topics for the land title insurance and settlement industry. Wire Transfer Fraud is a threat to every title operation regardless of size, location or years in business. ALTA’s priority is helping you protect your systems, plan for a rapid response in case of an incident, and prepare your employees, clients and customers to be aware and vigilant.
Industry Standard Policies and Tools
- ALTA Outgoing Wire Preparation Checklist: Use this checklist as a best practice for verifying outgoing wire information.
- ALTA Rapid Response Plan for Wire Fraud Incidents: Use this tool to customize your action plan when a wire fraud attempt occurs.
- Video: How To Complete an IC3 Report. Watch the video to see how easy it is to help law enforcement gather information.
- ALTA Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan: Use this tool to help your team to establish and maintain secure systems and be prepared to act quickly if an incident occurs. Leverage these resources to implement Step 1: Preparation:
- ALTA Cyber System Overview: Use this narrative to improve your understanding of a Cyber System Inventory, why it is important to Cybersecurity efforts, and how to create and maintain your company's inventory.
- ALTA Cyber System Inventory Workbook: Use this model workbook to create and customize your company's inventory.
- ALTA Business Impact Analysis: Use this guide to examine your software applications, determine which resources are critical to your operation, and discover when to add resources to minimize the business impact of downtime.
Employee Training and Awareness
- Monitor and Improve Employee Skills.
Consider a phishing security test for all of your employees. These companies can help: - Security Planner: https://securityplanner.org
- PhishMe: https://phishme.com/free
- KnowBe4: https://www.knowbe4.com/resources
- Webinars to Watch:
- Data Security Essentials: Strategies to Protect Non-public Personal Information (Download copy of presentation)
- Fortify Your Business: Lock Down Data and Protect Client Funds (Download copy of presentation)
- Safeguarding Escrow Trust Accounts
- Best Practices: Protecting Non-public Personal Information (Download copy of presentation)
- Fraud and Your Escrow/Trust Accounts (Download copy of presentation)
Resources for Your Clients and Consumers
- Wire Fraud Tips Video: Share this 1-minute video with homebuyers so they know how to protect their money.
- ALTA Wire Fraud Video: This 2-minute video provides four tips on how consumers can protect their money and offers advice on what to do if they have been targeted by a scam. Link to this video from your website, include in your email or share on social media.
- ALTA Wire Fraud Infographic: ALTA has produced this Rack Card explaining Wire Fraud. ALTA Members can brand the infographic with their own information at the ALTAprints website.
- ALTA Wire Fraud PowerPoint for Consumer Education: (Member-only content) Use this presentation to educate consumers about the dangers of phishing emails and wire transfer fraud. The presentation provides information on what to do if you’ve fallen victim to a scam and also highlights 10 tips to prevent wire fraud.
Get Information to Help Your Business and Your Customer Protect Closing Funds
Information Security Articles
Recent 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014
FBI Releases 2022 Congressional Report on BEC, Real Estate Wire Fraud
The FBI released a report that summaries its efforts to combat business email compromise (BEC) scams and real estate wire fraud by working with partners to identify perpetrators and dismantle their organizations. The report was spurred by ALTA’s efforts the past two years to get language included in various House and Senate appropriations reports directing respective agencies to report on efforts to combat and raise awareness of BEC and wire fraud, and collaborate with industry partners to address threats.
Ransomware Incidents Skyrocket in 2021, FinCEN Reports
FinCEN received 1,489 ransomware-related filings worth nearly $1.2 billion in 2021, according to latest analysis of Bank Secrecy Act filings. Read on for detection and mitigation recommendations and how to report suspicious cyber activity.
CertifID Launches New Wire Fraud Protection Solution
The new PayoffProtect solution uses machine learning to automate and standardize the mortgage payoff demand letter verification process. In more than 95% of cases, the company’s validation engine software authenticates loan payoff wiring instructions.
Good News for Good Deeds
Good news for the ALTA Good Deeds Foundation! CertifID, a wire fraud recovery and prevention company and ALTA Elite Provider, will be donating $25 to the ALTA Good Deeds Foundation for every person who attends a special webinar with ALTA CEO Diane Tomb. Register for this free session today.
New Cybersecurity Regulations Are Coming. Here’s How to Prepare.
A whole suite of new cybersecurity regulations and enforcement are in the offing, both at the state and federal level in the U.S. and around the world. Companies don’t need to just sit by and wait for the rules to be written and then implemented, however.
Homebuyers Sue REX After Losing $140K in Wire Fraud Scam
The complaint alleges negligence and breach of fiduciary duty after an unknown third party impersonated the brokerage's title company and sent the buyers fraudulent wiring instructions.
Survey: Cyber Attacks Against Title Companies Continues to Increase
Cyber attacks targeting title and settlement companies remained the same or increased over the past year, according to a recent ALTA survey.
How to Respond to Cybersecurity Incidents
ALTA created a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan template to help member companies develop a structured strategy to prepare for, identify, respond and recover from cybersecurity incidents. Read on to access the template.
How Fraudsters Target Mortgage Lending
Westcor, ClosingLock Partner to Help Combat Wire Fraud
Westcor Land Title Insurance Co. and ClosingLock are partnering to help combat wire fraud for the underwriter’s agents. The partnership will allow Westcor to offer ClosingLock to their agents, protecting them from wire fraud in addition to improving the closing experience.
How to Guard Against Losing Your Assets to Wire Fraud: A Growing Cybersecurity Threat
“We don’t want to see those trying to purchase homes derailed by wire transfer fraud. To help prevent this, we launched a campaign to inform homebuyers and policymakers about the dangers, along with signs of what may take place when closing on a new home or refinancing a mortgage,” said Jeremy Yohe, vice president of communications for the American Land Title Association.
Russian State-sponsored and Criminal Cyber Threats to Critical Infrastructure
Cybersecurity authorities from the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom released a joint cybersecurity advisory (CSA) warning that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could expose organizations to increased malicious cyber activity.
Last Chance: Take ALTA's Wire Fraud & Cyber Crime Survey
The United States experienced an unprecedented increase in cyberattacks and malicious cyber activity as consumers lost $6.9 billion to internet crime in 2021, according to the FBI. Because of this, ALTA would like to know your company’s experience with wire transfer fraud or cybersecurity? Please take ALTA's Wire Fraud & Cyber Crime Survey to share your experience. The goal of the survey is to learn more about wire fraud incidents in the industry. Your participation and results of the survey will help ALTA continue to raise awareness and encourage federal agencies to focus more on the threat of wire transfer fraud. Survey results will help title and settlement agents benchmark wire fraud experiences and practices.
Cyber Losses Hit $6.9B in 2021
America experienced an unprecedented increase in cyberattacks and malicious cyber activity as U.S. consumers lost $6.9 billion to internet crime in 2021, according to the latest report from theFBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Real estate/rental cybercrime losses reached $350 million in 2021, up from $213 million in losses in 2020. The number of victims, however, decreased to 11,578 from 13,638 in 2020.
FinCen Proposes SARs Sharing Program to Combat Money Laundering
The proposed pilot program would permit a financial institution with an obligation to file suspicious activity reports to share the SARs and related information with the institution’s foreign branches, subsidiaries and affiliates for the purpose of combating illicit finance risks, subject to approval and conditions set by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
Common Phishing Techniques
Attackers leverage a variety of tactics to execute phishing attacks against their targets including emails, fake social media pages and personas (known as social engineering), instant messaging, texts and compromised websites. Read on for a list of typical phishing attack techniques.
Title Companies Work to Keep Deals Moving Following Ransomware Attack on N.M. County
Title companies continued to implement procedures to help facilitate transactions after Bernalillo County, N.M., took all of its systems offline following a ransomware attack on Jan. 5. Bernalillo County commissioners have approved $2 million in recovery funding for the county’s recent ransomware issue. To date, the county has incurred costs of about $191,000 for the replacement of laptops affected by the malware.