Top American mortgage lender AnnieMac says thousands of customers have had data stolen in breach

• AnnieMac says more than 170,000 people have had names and SSNs exposed
• New filing with the Maine Attorney General covers Summer 2023 hack
• The identity and motive of the attackers are unknown at this time

AnnieMac Home Mortgage has revealed suffering a data breach in which the sensitive data on hundreds of thousands of customers was exposed.

The mortgage company confirmed the information in a filing with the Maine Office of the Attorney General, saying it spotted “suspicious activity on certain systems” within its network on August 23, 2023.

Subsequent investigation determined that an unnamed attacker accessed the company’s IT infrastructure on August 21, and “viewed and/or copied certain files” from these systems.

No one claimed responsibility yet

These “certain files” held people’s full names and Social Security Numbers (SSN). A total of 171,074 individuals were affected by the incident.

This, arguably, isn’t that disruptive of a breach. Cybercriminals prefer databases with email addresses, postal addresses, and phone numbers, since they can use the information to impersonate other people, engage in spam and phishing, and more. There are not plenty of things they can do with just names and SSNs.

To tackle the incident, AnnieMac did what most victim organizations do these days – it employed a third-party forensics company, notified the police, mailed the affected people, and offered a year’s worth of identity theft protection and credit monitoring, via CyEx.

It also apologized, saying the “confidentiality, privacy, and security of personal information within our care are among AnnieMac’s highest priorities.”

We don’t know who stole the files. So far,…