Could your mortgage lender be hacked by crooks?

In back-to-back months, Irvine-based Loandepot and Mr. Cooper — two of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders — made headlines for experiencing cyberattacks that exposed the data of more than 30 million people combined.

Mortgage lenders haven’t been the only recent targets. Title insurance companies Fidelity National Financial

and First American Financial each experienced cyberattacks in November and December 2023.

“If you see one attack against an industry or a group of organizations, it’s pretty common you’ll see others,” says James E. Lee, chief operating officer of the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center.

Whether you’re applying for a mortgage or already have one, your sensitive information is out there — and hackers could use it against you. Even if your mortgage isn’t with Mr. Cooper or Loandepot, these breaches are a wakeup call. Here’s how to protect your data and spot common scams.

Which mortgage lenders got hacked?

On Dec. 15, 2023, mortgage giant Mr. Cooper acknowledged that an October 2023 hack exposed the personal information of “substantially all of our current and former customers,” according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Compromised data included more than 14 million customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and bank account numbers.

“We take our role as a mortgage company very seriously, and there is nothing more important to us than maintaining our customers’ trust,” said Jay Bray, chairman and CEO of Mr. Cooper Group, in a press release. “I want you to know how sorry I am for any concern or frustration this may have caused.”

On Jan. 4, hackers broke into systems at Loandepot and encrypted, or digitally locked up, company data, the lender confirmed in an SEC filing. Loandepot hasn’t elaborated on the data involved in the attack. However, in a statement dated Jan. 22, the company disclosed that about 16.6 million individuals were 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 news release. “We sincerely regret any impact to our customers.”