Company: HOUS
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001398987-25-000020
Chunk: 84

Company: Anywhere Real Estate Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 84
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 to cloud solution providers. The secure processing, maintenance and transmission of this information is critical to our operations and with respect to information collected and stored by our third-party service providers, we are reliant upon their security procedures, which may not be as substantial as our own procedures. A breach or attack affecting one of our third-party service providers or partners could harm our business even if we do not control the service that is attacked.

Moreover, the real estate industry is actively targeted by cyber-attacker attempts to conduct electronic fraudulent activity directed at participants in real estate services transactions. These attacks, when successful, can result in fraud, including wire fraud related to the diversion of home sale transaction funds, or other harm, which could result in significant claims and reputational damage to us, our brands, franchisees, and independent sales agents and could also result in material increases in our operational costs. Further, these threats to our business may be wholly or partially beyond our control as our franchisees as well as our customers, franchisee and company owned brokerage independent sales agents and their customers, joint venture partners and third-party service providers may use e-mail, computers, smartphones and other devices and systems that are outside of our security control environment. In addition, real estate transactions involve the transmission of funds by the buyers and sellers of real estate, and consumers or other service providers selected by the 

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consumer may be the subject of direct cyber-attacks that result in the fraudulent diversion of funds, notwithstanding efforts we have taken to educate consumers with respect to these risks.

Cybersecurity incidents, depending on their nature and scope, could result in, among other things, the misappropriation, destruction, corruption or unavailability of critical systems, data and confidential or proprietary information (our own or that of third parties, including personal information and financial information) and the disruption of business operations. The potential consequences of a material cybersecurity incident include regulatory violations of applicable U.S. and international privacy and other laws, reputational damage, loss of market value, litigation with third parties (which could result in our exposure to material civil or criminal liability), diminution in the value of the services we provide to our customers, and increased cybersecurity protection and remediation costs (that may include liability for stolen assets or information), which in turn could have a material adverse effect on our competitiveness and results of operations.

Our security systems and IT infrastructure may not adequately protect against all potential security breaches, cyber-attacks, or other unauthorized access to personal information, including ransomware incidents. We, our third-party service