Cyberawareness

Ubitquity Inc. launched Crypto Audit Scanner — Title Company Edition, to help title agencies and real estate attorneys combat vacant land fraud. This product offers a combination of cryptocurrency source of funds verification and advanced seller identity defense.

With concerns about cybersecurity at a high level in today’s title insurance world, companies and agents must pay special attention to their insurance policies and make sure they are covered for any losses that may occur. The Title Report asked several industry experts to share their perspective on the issue.

Westcor Land Title Insurance Co. announced its identity verification application, val-ID by Westcor, recently played a role in preventing a fraudulent real estate transaction. Westcor Senior Vice President of Product Solutions Richard Murray spoke with The Title Report about this product that helps title professionals verify identities of buyers and sellers. Read on to learn more.

First American Financial Corp. said in a Jan. 3 update that its network and employee email system have been restored following a late December cybersecurity incident.

The Title Report talked to several industry cybersecurity experts for their take on the latest such incident.

Read on for more.

Stewart Information Services Corp. and CertifID reported a significant reduction in wire fraud risk for the title company, homebuyers, sellers, and lenders because of their partnership.

The decrease occurred during a 64 percent year-over-year rise in overall cybercrime losses, according to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Read on for more about the partnership.

Old Republic Title Insurance Group and ClosingLock are working together to help combat wire fraud for Old Republic’s agents.

ClosingLock provides a secure, easy-to-use platform for title companies, law firms and other financial services to protect themselves and their clients from wire fraud. The company has protected over $100 billion in real estate funds to date.

Read on for more.

SoftPro partnered with cybersecurity firm QOMPLX to release a cybersecurity solution for title companies.

SoftPro Protect includes managed detection and response services that provide firms with real-time threat detection, investigation, response, prevention, and reporting from both cybersecurity tools and security operations experts. SoftPro Protect also performs external scans to assess and analyze security vulnerabilities.

Read on for more.

Bank Shot is setting new cybersecurity standards in the industry for sending earnest money, down payments and other real estate funds, according to the company. It has partnered with Red Sentry, a testing tool that continually checks Bank Shot’s assets for vulnerabilities.

Read on for more.

The former assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division joined the Home Title Lock team as its senior cyber security adviser.

He will help the home title fraud detection service stop such cybercrimes and get the word out to consumers on what they can do to protect themselves from title theft scams.

Read on for more.

The American Land Title Association (ALTA) created a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan template to help member companies develop a strategy to prepare for, identify, respond and recover from cybersecurity incidents.

The template is developed based on information from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which has established guidelines to help companies protect themselves against cyber threats.

Read on for more.