Woman who is hacking expert shares how she fell victim to $400,000 online scam

A Silicon Valley executive has revealed how cyber criminals managed to scam her out of $400,000 over her dream home. 

Rana Robillard, chief people officer at startup Tekion, was elated to learn she'd beaten out three other bidders to purchasing a home in Orinda, San Francisco. 

After a yearlong search, the 55-year-old wasted no time in carrying out instructions in an email from her mortgage broker with directions to wire her down payment. 

Robillard, an industry veteran who has worked in cybersecurity, quickly sent across the $398,359.58 amount to a Chase account. 

But the next day, the executive received what appeared to be a duplicate request for the down payment - making her realize that she had been scammed.    

Much to her horror, Robillard had been tricked into sending her life savings to a criminal rather than to the title company for her future home. 

Speaking to CNBC, Robillard exclaimed: 'That's when I went into a full panic.'

According to the publication, once Robillard transferred her funds, they were quickly divided between a Citigroup and Ally Bank account. 

But Robillard quickly alerted her own bank, Charles Schwab of the fraud and soon, an official working in the cyber branch of the San Francisco division of the FBI contacted her. 

'Funds have been located and are frozen. That's all I'm allowed to tell you,' the official said, according an email reviewed by CNBC. 

In early July, she received a $150,000 wire from Chase - which were the funds that had been bounced back from Ally. 

Soon after, Robillard received the remaining balance of her down payment of nearly $250,000 that had been sent to Citi bank

A JPMorgan spokesman told CNBC : 'We are sorry to hear that Ms. Robillard was tricked into sending funds from her real estate transaction to an imposter. 

'Although she's not our customer, we were able to recover all of her funds.'

The cybersecurity expert said that in recent time, the real estate market has proven to be an especially lucrative target for criminals due to  large transaction sizes and frequent use of wire transfers. 

Scammers are able to impersonate mortgage brokers, real estate agents, lawyers or other advisors after hacking into their email systems. 

After a fraudster receives the money, they quickly begin to shuffle it among accounts to avoid being traced.

Once in the clear, they withdraw the stolen cash, convert it into crypto or exploit mules to launder the funds. 

Naftali Harris, CEO of anti-fraud startup SentiLink, commented: 'The faster the fraudster moves it out of that first account and the more institutions they move it to, the better for them, because it just gets murkier and harder to track.' 

As Robillard begins to find another home for her and her daughter, her original four-bedroom and 1976 square feet house has hit the market once again for $1.63 million.