Ransomware attack on American Lending Center compromised over 123K individuals

California-based American Lending Center announced that it suffered a significant ransomware attack last year that exposed the sensitive personal information of more than 123,000 individuals.

 

Headquartered in Irvine, California, American Lending Center is a private nonbank lender founded in 2009. It is a national leader in small business lending and EB-5 regional center projects, having funded over 100 U.S. projects to support job creation.

 

In a data security incident notice filed with the Office of Maine Attorney General, American Lending Center said that on 27 July, it identified suspicious activity in its internal network. The company immediately launched an investigation, with assistance from external cyber security experts, to determine the nature and scope of the incident.

 

“Through a forensic investigation into this breach, it was discovered that the threat actor compromised internal network, executed a ransomware attack, and accessed certain files that may have contained personal identifying or sensitive information,” reads the notice.

 

The compromised data includes names, dates of birth, social security information and other personal identifiers. The filing with the Maine state regulator also states that at least 123,158 people were impacted by the incident.

 

“American Lending has implemented additional safeguards to improve security within its infrastructure and will continue to take additional steps to protect related data from theft or similar cybercriminal activity in the future,” the company added.

 

While American Lending Center found no evidence of the compromise data being misused, it has advised all affected individuals to regularly monitor their credit reports, account and benefit statements and report any suspicious activity to law enforcement authorities, including the police and state attorney general. 

 

It has also offered one year of complimentary identity protection and credit monitoring services through IDX to all affected individuals.

 

At the time of publishing, no known hacker group claimed responsibility for the ransomware attack on American Lending Center. The company also did not share details on who was behind the attack, how much data was compromised, or whether it had received a ransom demand.