Major Mortgage Data Breach: JPMorgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley Exposed After Vendor Cyberattack

A significant cybersecurity incident recently occurred at the financial technology company SitusAMC, resulting in the potential exposure of sensitive information from major financial institutions such as JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. SitusAMC aids a variety of banks in mortgage servicing, which raises the stakes associated with the severity of the incident.

What Happened?​

The company stated that hackers breached incident management operations of the city customer service department. SitusAMC said it's working with local partners and federal officials to determine the scope of stolen information.

Their preliminary assessment includes sensitive mortgage data and client information from at least several of its bank clients. The universe of affected clients could extend beyond the clients of banks that use SitusAMC services.

Why This Is Serious​

Mortgage data is considered highly sensitive and personal. If this information were to be used improperly, it could cause harm to customers by exposing them to risks such as identity theft or fraud.

This event also raises important considerations about systemic risk caused when banks use third party services. If one vendor has a security breach, banks are at risk or a security breach.

What Is Being Done Now?​

• SitusAMC states it's investigating the hacking incident with law enforcement.
• The FBI is determining how the hackers accessed the system.
• The company states the attack did not involve ransomware.
• JPMorgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley are doing their own reviews to assess the amount of data impacted.

What Could Be Exposed?​

According to reports, the data exposed could contain:

• Mortgage application information
• Financial loan information
• Individual customer information
• Business documents and accounting documents

This is a serious threat to both customer information and business information.

A Simple Take​

This hack seems like a margin problem that mushroomed out of control. A single vendor get hacked, and now multiple banks might have issues. If I was a customer of these banks, I’d want to know the safety of my information.