Hackers prey on home buyers, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
> Date: November 4, 2017 at 6:51:21 PM EDT
> To: nnsquad () nnsquad org
> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Hackers prey on home buyers, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake
>
>
> Hackers prey on home buyers, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/hackers-prey-on-home-buyers-with-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-at-stake/2017/10/30/0379dcb4-bd87-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html
>
>      But if you're buying a house and heading to settlement, you
>    still may be far more vulnerable than you think to the
>    fastest-growing form of real estate cybercrime in the United
>    States: thefts of home-purchase money wired to complete
>    closing transactions.  The scam generally works like this:
>    Hackers find an opening into a title company's or realty
>    agent's email account, track upcoming home purchases scheduled
>    for settlements -- the pricier the better -- then assume the
>    identity of the title agency person handling the transaction.
>    Days or sometimes weeks before the settlement, the scammer
>    poses as the title or escrow agent whose email accounts
>    they've hijacked and instructs the home buyer to wire the
>    funds needed to close -- often hundreds of thousands of
>    dollars, sometimes far more -- to the criminals' own bank
>    accounts, not the title or escrow company's legitimate
>    accounts. The criminals then withdraw the money and vanish.
>
> - - -
>
> --Lauren--



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