Last August, Robert Masucci and Clare Falbe Masucci sold their house in Glen Ridge, N.J., for about $840,000 after owning it for 30 years. About an hour after the transaction closed and the profits from the sale arrived in their bank account, their lawyer received an email purporting to be from Mr. Masucci, instructing the lawyer to send the payout somewhere else.
Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting real-estate professionals, title agents and lawyers involved in buying and selling homes. In many cases, hackers compromise the email account of one party and read through correspondence to craft custom scams, often stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. If the fraud isn’t quickly discovered, funds can be difficult or impossible to recover, cybersecurity experts said. Real-estate wire fraud hit 11,300 people in 2018, leading to more than $149 million in losses, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That was up from 9,645 victims in 2017 who lost more than $56 million.