Homeowners left unable to complete sales as cyber attack on law firm IT provider CTS causes chaos
- The cyber attack affected between 80 and 200 law firms last Wednesday
- No sign that the issues have been resolved and many customers are still in the dark
- Real estate chains are falling apart because some parties cannot complete
Movers are unable to complete their sales and purchases due to a cyber attack on a company that provides IT services to a large number of transportation companies.
Reports indicate that between 80 and 200 law firms may have been affected by the cyber breach.
The company in question, CTS, was hit by the cyber attack last Wednesday and cannot confirm when normal services will resume.
Movers are left in limbo after a cyber attack on a company that provides IT services to a large number of transport companies
The real estate law regulator, CLC, has confirmed that the conveyancing sector is currently experiencing some disruption to transactions as a result of the cyber breach.
One person contacted This is Money to say he had lost his mortgage offer due to the delay.
The issue may also impact clients who do not use lawyers involved in CTS.
This is because long real estate chains of buyers and sellers all rely on each other to ensure they can complete their own purchases.
Delays in just one of the transactions can affect the rest of the chain.
The person said, “We were supposed to exchange and close last Friday because a mortgage offer expired.
‘Last week we only heard on Thursday evening that one of the lawyers in the chain was experiencing these IT problems.
‘We were unable to exchange and complete and the lawyer in question had no willingness or ability to sort without the IT system coming back online.
‘We had movers at my house on Friday morning, which I had to cancel.
‘My mortgage provider extended my deadline until Monday, but yesterday I had to refund the money as we received no further update on the IT system.
‘A total of four parties and three properties in the chain are on standby, amounting to a total value of £2 million.’
A mover on
They added: ‘My lawyer has simply been silent and ignored emails asking for information. It’s been over a week with no updates other than generic “IT issue” emails from the lawyer, and no other communication at all despite chasing.
“And if this was a hack, who had access to our data? We have no idea! But the purchasing process exposes a huge amount of personal data through lawyers, including access to bank accounts.’
Anyone currently taking out a new mortgage could also be at risk from the cyber attack.
If a customer refinancing their mortgage is unable to complete the mortgage seamlessly on the day their existing mortgage agreement expires, this means they will fall onto their current lender’s standard variable rate, which can be as high as 9.5 percent .
CTS has been contacted for comment but has said it cannot add anything else to the statement it published on its website.
It says: ‘We are experiencing a service outage which has impacted some of the services we provide to some of our customers.
‘The disruption was caused by a cyber incident. We are working closely with a leading global cyber forensics firm to assist us with an urgent investigation into the incident and to assist us with the restoration of services.
‘We continue to work 24 hours a day with the help of external experts. While we are confident that we can restore services, we cannot provide an accurate timetable for full restoration.
“We will continue to communicate directly with our customers affected by the service outage, providing regular updates on the status of our work to restore services and our investigation into the incident.”
