Estate agents becoming price targets for hackers, industry warned
Ravi Sejpal, of Karis Insurance, says: "In many cases, property businesses hold just as much detail about their client base as a bank would."
Estate agents and surveyors are becoming more attractive targets to hackers, it has been claimed.
Property insurance specialist Karis insurance says agents and surveyors are increasingly in the criminals’ sights because they collect more personal data than ever before.
Some clients lists also contain a high proportion of affluent and high net worth individuals.
The insurer’s figures show that cyber attacks against British property services businesses rose 17% in the past year.
They climbed to 208 in the year ending 31st December 2025, up from 178 the previous year.
Data collection
The data held by agents includes passports and driving licences for AML and KYC checks, as well as proof of address, bank details, mortgage information and tenancy records.
It is valuable to criminals in several ways, including where an attack looks a business out of its own system until a ransom is paid.
An attack could also be based on identity theft or by selling details such as bank information on the dark web.
Information relating to live transactions also carries a risk. It can enable payment diversion fraud, where hackers substitute their own bank details for the seller’s during a purchase.
Property businesses hold just as much detail about their client base as a bank would.”
Ravi Sejpal, Director of Insurance at Karis Insurance, (pictured), says: “In many cases, property businesses hold just as much detail about their client base as a bank would.
“However there are very few businesses in the property sector who have bank-level data security arrangements.”
He adds: “The sort of personal data that property agencies hold about their clients could be hugely valuable if it fell into the wrong hands. These figures show that hackers are increasingly realising that.”
