Australian real estate agency Harcourts confirmed that it has suffered a data breach last month at its Melbourne city office which potentially exposed the credential of tenants, landlords, and tradespeople.
The agency wrote to its customers that its rental property database has been trespassed by an unknown third party without authorization.
Furthermore, on Thursday Harcourts said that the breach took place when the account of a representative at service provider Stafflink, which provides the franchisee administrative support, was attacked, and accessed by a third party.
"We understand the unauthorized access occurred because the representative of Stafflink was using their own device for work purposes rather than a company-issued (and more secure) device," it said in a statement.
The agency learned about the attack on October 24 in an email sent to customers has confirmed. According to the email circulated online, it said that for tenants the credentials potentially breached included their names, email addresses, addresses, phone numbers, photo identification, and signatures.
For landlords and trades, bank details as well as their names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and signatures have been compromised.
The attack came to notice after weeks when the security experts and tenancy advocates raised concerns about the potential for data breaches in the industry.
Following the attack, the chief executive Adrian Knowles said dealing with the incident was the company’s top priority. Further, he added that an investigation is going on and we are hoping we will solve the matter soon.
“We understand people will be deeply concerned and upset about this data breach. I would like to offer our sincere apologies to everyone who has been inconvenienced as a result…,” Knowles said. “…We are working together with the franchisee to ensure that all impacted individuals are advised of the incident. In addition, we are in the process of establishing complimentary credit monitoring and access to the IDCARE support service for impacted individuals.”
