December 21, 2023
First American Financial Corporation has experienced a cybersecurity incident and as a result, has taken many of their systems offline. Official updates from First American can be seen at firstamupdate.com.
Currently, First American Trust banking systems are offline, impacting our ability to complete many banking transactions.
The outage is not related to any breach, negligence, or wrongdoing by Clear Title Agency of Arizona. Operating systems at Clear Title Agency are functioning normally, however we are experiencing issues with connecting to data and systems that are hosted by First American.
This cybersecurity incident is impacting thousands of First American agents nationwide. When First American restores service to their agents, we will quickly resume normal operations.
We take these threats seriously and for several years have been actively taking measures to mitigate risks to our business and maintain the trust and confidence of customers.
We have made significant investments in the following safeguards over recent years:
We have multiple dedicated servers running in a safe, isolated environment, housed locally in Arizona, with the ability to immediately restore from a back-up copy given the need.
We have made the investment to privately host our production software (SoftPro), giving us more control than relying on cloud-based, shared systems.
We use multiple software programs and tools to verify the banking information and identity of customers before wiring funds.
We invest in the latest versions of virus protection and email security software and actively test our systems for vulnerabilities.
For years we have engaged in an active company-wide “Human Shield” campaign that highlights and awards team members for identifying or preventing any cyber threat or email phishing attack. This activity keeps our team engaged and on high alert.
We will continue to provide updates as more information becomes available from First American Financial Corporation.
