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A cyberattack on loanDepot exposed sensitive personal information of 16.6 million people to an “unauthorized third party” the company disclosed this week, saying it will provide free credit monitoring and identity protection services to all of those affected.
“Unfortunately, we live in a world where these types of attacks are increasingly frequent and sophisticated, and our industry has not been spared,” loanDepot CEO Frank Martell said in a statement Monday. “We sincerely regret any impact to our customers.”
The nation’s two largest title insurers — Fidelity National Financial and First American Financial — were forced to shut down their systems after similar security breaches in November and December, and mortgage servicing giant Mr. Cooper notified nearly 15 million past and current customers last month that their personal information may have been compromised in an October data breach.
In its initial Jan. 8 report on the incident, loanDepot said it had been forced to “shut down certain systems” after discovering an unauthorized third party accessed them and encrypted some of the company’s data — a tactic employed by ransomware groups that have targeted more than 1,000 companies and organizations. The incident was discovered on Jan. 4, loanDepot informed investors.
Shares in loanDepot, which hit a 52-week low of $1.14 on Oct. 30, had bounced back to a 2023 high of $3.71 on Dec. 28 before retreating below $3 in the aftermath of the cyberattack.
On a webpage where loanDepot is posting operational updates, the company said its loan servicing portal, which homeowners use to make their monthly mortgage payments, was back online “with some limits to functionality” on Jan. 18, and fully operational the following day.
The MyloanDepot customer portal for online loan applications and status tracking, mellohome’s website (which connects pre-approved homebuyers with partner real estate agents) and loanDepot’s HELOC customer portal were all back online Jan. 18.
“The entire loanDepot team has worked tirelessly throughout this incident to support our customers, our partners and each other,” Martell said. “I am pleased by our progress in quickly bringing our systems back online and restoring normal business operations.”
LoanDepot, which posted a $610 million 2022 net loss and an additional $137.5 million in losses during the first nine months of 2023, informed investors that it “has not yet determined whether the cybersecurity incident is reasonably likely to materially impact the company’s financial condition or results of operations.”
In reporting a $34 million Q3 2023 net loss in November, executives at the Irvine, California-based lender said they expected Q4 mortgage originations to total between $4 billion and $6 billion.
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