Summary

Teri Radichel discusses the need for improved cybersecurity in the mortgage industry, emphasizing the shared responsibility from executives to individual workers, and outlines plans for a series of blog posts to address specific security issues.

Abstract

The mortgage industry faces significant cybersecurity challenges, as highlighted by Teri Radichel's personal experience during a recent house purchase. Radichel, a cybersecurity expert, plans to publish a series of blog posts to raise awareness about the vulnerabilities she encountered, such as poorly designed processes, problematic portals, and communication gaps that increase the risk of cyber attacks. She emphasizes that while the responsibility for cybersecurity ultimately lies with industry executives and decision-makers, every individual involved in the process can contribute to enhancing security. Radichel's goal is to inform industry professionals about the potential

Cybersecurity for the Mortgage Industry — Part 1

Responsibility lies at the top but everyone involved can help

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⚙️ Part of my series on Automating Cybersecurity Metrics. The Code.

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I’ve been trying to buy a house since February and finally closed. It’s been quite an ordeal. I’m going to write about some cybersecurity issues I noticed along the way to help with awareness and hopefully some organizations and individuals will take actions that will help make transactions in the industry more secure.

When I told someone who was helping me about this he said, “You’re going to call us out?!” No. First of all, he was a lawyer so that would be dumb on my part. But more importantly, that is not the purpose of this series of blog posts. I want to help people understand why seemingly small problems can lead to bigger problems and what to do about them. I also hope this information gets to the right people in the industry and at the organizations (without naming names) so they can make improvements and fix problems.

The other thing is, I don’t think this is specific to any one company or person. I had issues with pretty much every mortgage industry or document portal I logged into in one way or another. I feel bad for the people that have to deal with them every day. They were all apologetic and these problems are not their fault. I suspect a lot of other portals and processes I didn’t deal with have similar issues. I sold in one state and purchased in another that had completely different processes but some of the same underlying issues in regards to how buyers and sellers give and receive information for wire transfers.

I’m almost afraid to write these blog posts for fear that the wrong people will read them and the right people won’t. The wrong people will be eager to hear about problems in the industry and take advantage of it while the right people may be too busy making money or unconcerned to bother. In other cases, the people in the industry who read it might not be able to do anything about it as they are not decision-makers or the people who can affect change. Perhaps they can pass the message along because fixing these problems will make everyone’s job easier and people’s money safer.

The changes in this industry to fix some of the problems lie in the realm of the industry as a whole, executives, and in a worst-case scenario since no one in business likes compliance and regulations, with the government. Hopefully, the industry can make some adjustments before more wire transfers end up in the wrong bank accounts or an adverse event such as ransomware affects their systems.

Stay tuned for more blog posts explaining the following areas where cybersecurity risk gets introduced into mortgage transactions:

Poorly designed processes increase cyber risk
Problems with portals and risky software
Communication gaps enable social engineering
Disjointed industry solutions
What you should know about your IRS account

Although I believe fixing cybersecurity issues lives with the people who are ultimate decision makers at a company or within an industry, each individual within the process can take some small steps to reduce risk based on some simple recommendations which I will provide.

Mortgage, Banking, Legal, and Real Estate Industry Security

Stories on Mortgage and Real Estate Security

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About Teri Radichel:
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⭐️ Author: Cybersecurity Books
⭐️ Presentations: Presentations by Teri Radichel
⭐️ Recognition: SANS Award, AWS Security Hero, IANS Faculty
⭐️ Certifications: SANS ~ GSE 240
⭐️ Education: BA Business, Master of Software Engineering, Master of Infosec
⭐️ Company: Penetration Tests, Assessments, Phone Consulting ~ 2nd Sight Lab

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