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CIH hit by cyber attack
The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has said it is rolling out increased digital security measures after being hit by a cyber attack that compromised the email accounts of several members of staff.
The attack, which has now been shut down by the organisation’s IT team, saw six accounts compromised. However, only two of those accounts were illegitimately used to send emails to contacts.
CIH said the attack, which was first spotted on Monday afternoon, was identified early enough by its IT team for it to be shut down quickly so the impact could be limited.
The organisation said it was now confident it had fixed the breach and that its customers need take no further action. No other personal data was compromised as a result of the security breach.
The CIH emailed its database of contacts to inform them of the breach and warn them against opening emails from compromised accounts.
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A follow up email was sent on Tuesday confirming that the breach had been contained and advising customers not to open any suspicious emails but forward them to governance@cih.org.
The CIH is now rolling out additional security measures to prevent future attacks, but has said the new protections may take some time to be fully implemented.
The CIH incident is the latest cyber attack on a housing organisation in recent times. Earlier this year, the Scottish Regulator warned landlords about the threat of coronavirus-themed cyber attacks after one housing association was hit by a ransomware attack and others were targeted with phishing email campaigns.
A CIH spokesperson said: “The safety and security of our CIH members and stakeholders is extremely important to us and we’re doing all we can to ensure attacks like this cannot be repeated.”
