CTS, a leading IT company that provides services for property conveyors was hit by a massive cyber attack. Over 200 related firms that used CTS to manage properties and transactions were impacted by the attack.
This resulted in a large disruption to the entire UK housing market. Thousands of homes were put in limbo, with buyers being unable to purchase homes. Many of these were sales in progress that can no longer be completed until the problem is solved.
Technical outages, service disruptions, and network instability were reported in companies like O’Neill Patient, Talbots Law, and Taylor Rose MW. The scale of the breach has caused widespread anxiety across the UK and heavily impedes the entire market.
CEO of My1Logic, Mike Newman stated the incident illustrates the problem of a reliance on interconnected supply chains. A single company in the chain being breached could affect the entire chain, affecting thousands of companies.
It’s a similar situation to the MOVEit file transfer hack, where a single company being breached saw international companies, Fortune 500 companies, small businesses around the world, and even government agencies being hurt by a lone breach.
Any third-party firm may not have adequate security in place to prevent hacks and that puts stress on an entire market. Since markets are interconnected, the disruption in one market can carry over between multiple sectors.
The CTS is currently investigating the breach. They’re working with government agencies and third-party experts which include a global forensics firm. However, there are several large impediments to the investigations that prevent the company from having a timeline on how long it will take to fully rectify the situation.
This means the disruption to the housing market may experience rippling effects that aren’t fully worked out for a long time to come. The full severity of the cyberattack is also currently unknown, adding to the market-wide anxiety.