The real estate industry has been bombarded with cyber crime over the past few years. The risks are escalating as hackers penetrate property transactions, swiping people’s life savings from under the radar. These funds are often never recovered.
Real estate cyber theft happens when home buyers receive what seems like a perfectly normal e-mail from a party associated with their property transaction. The e-mail resembles that of their agent or attorney; the signature, fonts, and logos are identical. The e-mail says the plan for submitting the down payment has changed and gives new wiring instructions. Everything appears perfectly legitimate, and the buyers complete the transaction. The money is gone, and no party involved in the real estate transaction is aware they’ve been hacked.
Hackers can pop in and out of people’s e-mails without detection, often leaving the unsuspecting individuals untouched if it’s clear they’re not involved in any high-ticket transactions. If hackers make their way into the e-mail of someone involved in a real estate transaction, they can deconstruct the person’s identity in order to gain access to associated accounts. Then they are able to create e-mails and Internet landing pages that appear identical to those involved in the transaction.
And these hackers are experts at real estate transactions. They know the process, what clients are told to expect, when large sums of money are supposed to be transferred. They wait for the perfect time to jump in, use their fraudulent e-mails to dupe a home buyer into wiring money into their account, and disappear virtually untraced with those hard-earned savings.
Here’s what can be done… READ MORE: http://realestate.boston.com/buying/2017/06/21/when-home-buyers-fall-victim-to-cyber-theft/
