Landmark White shares plunge on return

Shares in property valuation company Landmark White have resumed trading following a devastating data breach in which customer data was posted on the dark web.

Landmark White shares have plunged on their return to trade from a near three-month suspension following a data breach that cost the property valuation company and led to the resignation of its CEO.

At 1328 AEST on Tuesday, shares in the company were down seven cents, or 18.42 per cent, to 31 cents - a near six-year low.

The shares returned to market a day after Landmark White said it had resolved all issues related to the breach it announced in February, which led to it being suspended as a panel valuer by all four major banks.

While three of the four major major banks have since reinstated Landmark White and the fourth is expected to do so soon, the suspension has already cost the company $5 million to $6 million in lost revenue, and will likely cost it another $1 million.

Landmark White is now expecting to lose $2.3 million for the year, rather than make $2.8 million in profit, and does not expect to declare a dividend.

Some 137,500 valuation records from the company were posted on the dark web for 10 days beginning on January 31.

The data was hacked "via an exposed programming interface on one of our valuation platforms," Landmark White has said.

The personal information disclosed was "relatively benign," including contact details, email addresses, phone numbers and commentary about the property relevant to its valuation, LandMark White has said.

It did not include loan applications, dates of birth or personal bank account information.

Someone messaged the company a link to the records via the company's Live Chat function on its website on January 30, but the link couldn't be accessed and the message was discarded as spam.

Also, someone tweeted the company about the data being available in the dark web around January 10, but the company's Twitter account wasn't actively monitored over the holiday period.

Chris Coonan, who had been with the company since 2003 and had served as chief executive since 2016, resigned in March, effective immediately.

Timothy Rabbit, the former managing director of Taylor Byrne, has been working as acting CEO.

Landmark White said it has implemented significantly enhanced digital security measures, and is working to achieving an international information security standard known as ISO27001.

Company chairman Keith Perret said he wanted to thank all the loyal staff who had stayed with Landmark White during this "extremely difficult time".


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Source: AAP


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