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.
• ALTA Best Practices. The third pillar of ALTA’s “Title Insurance and Settlement Company Best Practices” provides procedures that should be taken to protect non-public personal information (NPI).

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 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014

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.

“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.

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.

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.