Landmark White chief Chris Coonan quits following dark web data security breach
Chris Coonan, the chief executive of Landmark White, has resigned from his post following the cyber security breach that saw thousands of records posted on the darkweb.
Coonan had spent over 14 years at the embattled property services company, who have lost a string of major clients including CBA, NAB and ANZ since a dataset containing property valuation and personal contact information stolen last month.
He was named CEO in 2016, having previously been the national director for residential valuations.
Landmark White have been under fire from all angles since the dataset was listed on the dark web in February.
"We can now share that on 30 December 2018, we received a message through the 'Live Chat' messaging service on our website, providing us with a link to the dark web," the company advised at the time.
"An unknown criminal has maliciously accessed a LandMark White’s system."
"We do not know the identity of the individual," it added.
Its investigations reveal that the dataset contained:
- approximately 137,500 unique valuation records, and approximately 1,680 supporting documents.
- approximately 250,000 individual records in total but a lot of records are duplicates.
- The date of the documents range between approximately 4 January 2011 and 20 January 2019.
The board has also announced that co-founder of LMW, Glen White, and Frank Hardiman will stand down as a Non-Executive Directors of the company.
Glen established the Queensland practice that became Landmark White in 1982 and served as a Non-Executive Chairman between December 2015 and May 2018.
Frank was the Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary of LMW between 2011 and 2016, before being appointed a Non-Executive Director of the company.
The board acknowledged Chris’ tireless efforts in his role, but agreed that the changing nature of the business and market conditions – combined with major reputational challenges caused by the recent cyber-attack – had changed the requirements for the executive leadership of LMW.
In the interim, it announced the appointment of Timothy Rabbitt as Acting Chief Executive Officer of LMW.
In October 2018, LMW announced a merger with Taylor Byrne to further cement LMW's position as the largest, locally owned ASX-listed valuation property services business.
Founded in 1982 and listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2003, LMW has over 400 staff.