Homebuilder Lennar discloses customer data breach affecting thousands

Miami-based homebuilder Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN), one of the most active national builders working in Arizona, has disclosed to several states that it suffered a customer data breach.

Lennar notified customers about the data breach on Oct. 4, according to a notification submitted to California’s Department of Justice. The sample letter Lennar provided stated that the company detected unauthorized activity in its IT system in July 2023 and it immediately took protective actions to stop it and notified law enforcement.

The builder warned homebuyers that some of their personal information may have been accessed by the unauthorized party, but there’s no reason to believe the information was misused.

Lennar offered customers a 24-month membership to Experian IdentityWorks credit monitoring and identity restoration at no cost.

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In a notification to the Maine Attorney General about the same incident, Lennar stated that 7,448 customers nationwide were impacted and blamed it on hacking.

Officials with Lennar could not immediately be reached for comment.

Lennar ranks No. 1 on the latest Business Journal list of the top 25 Valley homebuilders, ranked by 2022 housing starts in the Phoenix metro. Lennar topped the list with 2,464 housing starts. In its latest move in the Valley, Lennar paid some $14 million earlier this month to acquire 102 lots from Landsea Homes Corp. (Nasdaq: LSEA) at the El Cidro master-planned community in Goodyear, 

Companies are increasingly concerned about the threat of data breaches and for good reason. The average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million – a 15% increase over the past 3 years, according to a recent report by IBM. Additionally, nearly half of organizations plan to increase security investments as a result of a breach, it said. 

The Phoenix Business Journal contributed to this article.