Mortgage Software Solutions Blog

Many mortgage companies, especially smaller firms, assume that their business is safe from hackers and other potential cyber attacks, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Cyber attacks present just as big of a risk to small mortgage businesses as they do to large, and in many cases, the associated risk is actually larger.

In today’s increasingly mobile world, more and more businesses are allowing their employees to use their mobile devices for work, especially when those employees are on the road or working from home. As a result, mobile security is more important than ever for protecting businesses from the threat of an information breach. In fact, despite mounting evidence of growing security threats, many companies still disregard mobile security as a priority. And in the mortgage industry, where your company handles such quantities of private information, ignoring security on mobile devices is a gamble you cannot afford to make.

In today’s highly digital world, much of our business communications take place over email. The mortgage industry, especially, relies on email to communicate with clients, send and receive important documents, and to transmit customer information. However, with email comes a lot of security vulnerabilities that put your mortgage company at risk of contracting malware or having your sensitive communications intercepted by hackers. Email security is vitally important, and it is necessary to establish a strong email security policy that provides proper guidance for your loan officers on how to handle email communications.

The benefits of switching your mortgage company's servers and desktops to the cloud go beyond just joining the latest technology trends. You've no doubt heard plenty about the cloud over the last few years, with both positive and negative reactions. However, almost all of the negative reactions come from simple misunderstandings about cloud system capabilities. These days, cloud technology can not only do everything your old in-house servers and desktop computers can do, but they can do it more affordably, more securely, and with far more adaptable features.

In the last 18 months, the world has seen a sharp rise in cyber-attacks. Last year the term “data breach” became mainstream vernacular. In 2014, the Wall Street Journal devoted 1,102 articles related to data breaches up by more than 50% from the 470 articles from the previous year.  Thinking about how much financial data your mortgage firm deals with on a daily basis is enough to make your head spin. Because of this, you probably find yourself thinking about mortgage company security all the time. But if those concerns are keeping you up at night, it may be time to think more seriously about what kind of security you're using and whether it's really working to ward off cyber dangers.Last year, The Los Angeles Times did a piece about how vulnerable mortgage companies really are to the above threats. The report came from a cyber security firm called Halock Security Labs and an extensive study on mortgage lenders about their security vulnerabilities. In the report, the firm found that out of those surveyed, seven out of 10 mortgage firms sent digital data without proper encryption.

Mortgage companies are now required to adhere to the same stringent regulations for protecting consumer data as banks. These regulations can add to the time it takes to process applications and increase the costs of training your staff on the proper handling of data. To avoid these wasteful expenses, Access Business Technologies has provided mortgage companies with a solution through our MortgageWorkSpace platform. This innovative platform allows mortgage companies to process applications and monitor current client information, while training employees and adjusting business practices to comply with the new regulations.

In the last 18 months, the world has seen a sharp rise in attacks on businesses, individuals and even government organizations by hackers using sophisticated malware. One of the most dangerous of all being Ransomware. If you've never heard of Ransomware, it basically hijacks your computer system and allows hackers to lock you out of your personal data until you pay a ransom. This may sound like something out of a movie, but unfortunately, it's not. Ransomware is very real, and it’s costing companies millions of dollars.