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No evidence passwords or customer information accessed in cyberattack, says Clarion
There is no evidence that Clarion residents had their passwords or customer information accessed as a result of a cyberattack, the country’s largest housing association said.
In an update today, the 125,000-home landlord confirmed that its customer relationship management (CRM) system, where it keeps the bulk of its customer information, was not accessed during the June attack, and it hadn’t found any indication that passwords were compromised.
However, it was still investigating the extent to which data stored elsewhere may have been affected and said it was important not to speculate further while this took place.
Many of Clarion’s services are still down, following an attack that targeted the housing association’s IT infrastructure last month.
Clarion first noticed disruptions to some of its systems at the end of June, with the attack then hitting a number of its services, as well as phone lines.
At the time, the association advised residents not to contact it by phone unless an emergency repair was needed and to assume that any email sent to the landlord from Friday 17 June had not been received.
Earlier this month, Clarion said the cyberattack could result in a long period of disruption and that it would have to rebuild some of its systems completely.
In its latest update, it said it was working closely with its cybersecurity partner and other experts to restore systems and would gradually start returning to a full service.
It is also now working with enforcement agencies that are investigating the crime.
Clarion is still asking residents not to contact it by phone unless in the case of an emergency. This is defined as an issue that affects a resident’s health and safety, or an issue that could seriously damage a property if not dealt with quickly.
Clarion has urged tenants and leaseholders to continue to pay rent and service charges despite the disruption and confirmed that Allpay, its online payment service, and bank transfers were still working. Online balances of accounts were not updating correctly and should be ignored, it added.
The update from Clarion comes two days after 40,000-home landlord Bromford had to shut its systems down after an attempted cyberattack on the association.
In a video posted on social media, Dan Goodall, chief information officer at Bromford, said there was no evidence yet that the attack had been successful, but the association is taking steps to shut its technology down as a precaution. This meant closing the association’s email systems and phone lines.
It is one of a string of social landlords to be hit by cyberattacks in the past 18 months. Flagship, the housing association, was hit by security breaches, and councils such as Hackney and Gloucester City Council also still feeling the impact of cyberattacks that took place months ago.
