This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
AUSTRALIA’S largest lender, the Commonwealth Bank has reinstated LandMark White onto its residential valuation panel, with the other banks expected to follow this week.
The banks suspended LMW from their valuation panel last month after it emerged that LMW was the victim of a cyber-attack.
In what will be welcomed and positive news for the 400 professionals at the firm, LMW said the CBA has reinstated the firm effective on March 18, and it expects other lenders will follow this week.
Since the incident, LMW said it has worked closely with the CBA’s data protection group, to assess and improve LMW’s data security environment.
The firm has also engaged external cyber security experts.
The independent firm said it was committed to ensure its data privacy, security standards and internal processes meet or exceed CBA’s requirements.
“LMW has engaged leading external cyber security and privacy experts to help it understand the impact of this incident and has obtained an independent risk assessment in respect of its own customers directly impacted by this incident.
“Taking the views of its advisors as well as its own assessment into account, LMW has concluded that, except for 25 individuals, this incident presents a very low risk of harm to individuals impacted by this incident. The 25 individuals have been provided with additional personal assistance to ensure they are supported and protected,”
“The independent risk assessment further indicated that the persons at most risk from the incident were the employees of LMW due to the impact the ongoing bank suspensions is having on the cashflows of LMW.
“LMW has fully cooperated with the major banks and other clients and provided them with all information requested to allow them to respond appropriately. LMW has made significant enhancements to its IT security procedures including anonymisation of private details on completed valuations. LMW will continue to enhance its IT security in line with best practice industry standards,”
LMW said whilst reinstatement onto valuation panels will allow LMW to revert to normal business in due course, there is likely to be a “ramp up” period of several weeks over which revenues will increase to pre-incident levels.
“Until this has occurred, LMW is not in a position to finalise its assessment of the financial impact of the incident and accordingly anticipates that the suspension of trading in its securities will remain in place for a further period of two to four weeks,” LMW said.
Last week, the Australian Property Institute rallied the industry to support LMW. CEO Amelia Hodge said cyber-attacks represent just one of the risks businesses face simply because they are in business.
Hodge added that LMW was not alone, in the same month the federal government announced that the Australian Parliament and political parties were also targets of cyber-attacks.
“Because they are criminal acts, no business is immune. While it is not possible for enterprises to completely remove all cybercrime risk, it is possible to prepare for the possibility, mitigate the risk, contain and remediate any damage following a cyber attack and, in the interests of all, be able to return to business-as-usual as soon as the risk is satisfactorily resolved.” Hodge concluded.
Last week LMW announced that CEO Chris Coonan resigned.
Australian Property Journal
