The Rapattoni Real Estate MLS Tragedy – What Happened?

Rapattoni Hack Was A Tragic Shock To Agents & Brokers Nationwide

The company that makes MLS real estate technology Rapattoni has been hit by and is the victim of, a ransomware infection on Wednesday of last week. The attack affected the servers of Rapattoni, which hosts multiple listing services for several hundred thousand users; many are still concerned because of outages discovered over the most recent five days.

Northwest Indiana Realtors Association, San Francisco Association of Realtors, BAREIS MLS, Pasadena Foothills Realtors and CincyMLS had been struggling with problems as of Friday, as per Dave Woodson of Dream Team Agents as well as posts in MLS websites. It is now clear that the outages and lack of accessibility is more than just a small technical glitch.

“No one can add or remove listings, update statuses and things such as that,” Woodson stated to Inman via email. “I’m telling my clients the truth — they were hacked, they don’t have their information, but they have all mine.”

“I can’t update their home, but I’m doing all I can to resolve it,” Woodson stated. “[I’m trying] to market their property quickly. It’s difficult to create an offer when you don’t find all of the details about the home on one page.”

Rapattoni’s MLS technical assistance line on Friday, August 11, sent an unrecorded message that confirmed the problem. At the time of writing, the incident impacts the business’s website, making it inaccessible.

Several agents, brokers and MLS companies have contacted Rapattoni to verify the total amount of MLSs that are affected. We will update this blog post if the company replies.

The testimonial page for clients of the company of the Rapattoni MLS product cites several multi-listing services that have customers, including Omaha Area Board of Realtors, Bakersfield Association of Realtors, St. Louis Realtors, South Tahoe Association of Realtors and Lynchburg Association of Realtors, in addition to many more.

The Federal CISA Is Involved

Federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency describe ransomware as “a constantly evolving type of malware that encrypts data on a device that renders any file and the devices that depend on them inoperable. Criminals demand ransom for the decryption.”

Woodson sent screenshots to Inman explaining the issue to users. Inman states that no updated listing information provided by Rapattoni can be accessed after August 9. The email to customers includes the following:

Federal authorities are investigating the cyber-attack, and Rapattoni’s insurance company is currently negotiating with the ransomware individuals.

Rapattoni Is Doing Everything In Their Power To Course-correct

“Since the beginning of yesterday, Rapatttoni have brought in 300 servers that will restore the MLS “environment. The MLS information was stored on separate servers unaffected, meaning all our historical data is protected. What needed to be stored was each MLS system’s configurations. If Rapattoni is unable to agree with cyber-attackers cyber-attackers, it could take the cyber-attackers some time to replicate our system. What exactly the timeframe is not yet known.”

Multiple Listing Service Companies At A Standstill

One MLS, the San Francisco Association of Realtors, updated its website as it worked to find a solution. The post published on August 10 proved that the problem still needs to be resolved.

” While we recognize that listing inputs (and edits), broker tours and open houses are paramount, we have determined that the ability to add new listings and edit existing ones will not be restored today.”

The services that are not available to members of SFAR include the capability to modify account information or to make changes such as new memberships or the process of termination and reinstatement in case of not paying. Staff members cannot change anything on behalf of the members because a new listing entry or editing isn’t possible.
In a FAQ on SFAR’s website, the association announced that it would suspend the Clear Cooperation obligations as a temporary solution and allow members to promote new listings without the controversial 24-hour MLS input requirements.

Getting Hacked – It Could Real Have Happened To Any MLS

Zillow, the most prominent listing website of homes for the general public, has also been. In 2021 the site changed how it receives listing information moving from a myriad of scattered MLS and broker data sources into a single IDX feed. This is similar to the way that most traditional brokerages do.

Zillow deployed a temporary solution to support our MLS partners who are affected and to help maintain listing accuracy for customers who are shopping on our site,” stated a Zillow spokesperson in an email sent to Inman. “We are encouraging agents in the impacted areas to work with their MLS directly to have their listings manually updated on Zillow.

A discussion on the r/Realtors channel on the news aggregator site and social media platform Reddit is currently addressing the issue, with one participant, SweetnessBaby, declaring they’ll use Zillow until the problem is fixed. Another user, a seller who goes by the name bte_, said that their agent suggested Zillow, and they are doing an FSBO (For Sale by Owner).

I am a software engineer in the sector (not in Rap), and everyone was aware of the issue immediately, but they let the news that an attack took place in a letter to associations who use their software. In addition to the whole MLS shutting down, scores of regions cannot handle the members or manage billing.  Another Reddit User, AshuraVonXacto, wrote.

Lucky_Object109 predicted that the outage affects more than “1, 525,000 Realtors nationwide, more than houses for sale.”
The incident may not be the first battle with pirates of data, according to a blog post from 2019 published on Appraiserblogs.com indicated MetroList, which is a Sacramento-based MLS, was hit by a cyberattack on the data supplier it uses.

In Closing

What is also somewhat concerning is the fact that Rapattoni also provides tools to MLS companies to manage their clients and even tasks agents rely on every day. Our hope is that at worst, only listings are compromised and not credit cards or more serious, personal information. Only time will tell but we hope for the best for this long-time giant in the real estate industry.  If you are an agent or broker without an MLS (due to this awlful situation), please reach out to our support team at MyState MLS, as we can help you expand your territory and reach more potential customers as you weather the storm.