US mortgage lender admits to LockBit data breach

Updated on: February 12, 2024 9:46 AM

Damien Black
Senior Journalist

Generic picture of hacker at laptop — Image by Shutterstock

Planet Home Lending has disclosed a cyberattack that exposed the loan records of hundreds of thousands of people. The lender believes that the ransom gang LockBit is responsible.

“Planet was one of many companies around the world whose information security systems were compromised by the threat actor LockBit in connection with one of its recent global ransomware campaigns,” the company said.

The lender says it became aware of the attack on its Citrix software systems on November 15th, the same day as it occurred, and a subsequent investigation determined that 284,974 people were affected.

“Planet was able to determine with reasonable certainty that the threat actor accessed a read-only data folder in which copies of loan files containing personally identifiable information of some of its customers were stored,” said the company.

The exposed data in the loan files included names, addresses, and Social Security and financial account numbers.

Planet has notified the authorities as well as the victims and says it has put in “additional technical safeguards” to prevent another data breach from happening.

It added: “Further, we are currently in the process of retaining a third-party consultant to perform a complete audit and risk assessment of Planet’s information security technology, controls, and processes in order to ensure we are employing appropriate safeguards to protect our valued customers’ personal information.”