Digital transformation is already underway in the real estate industry, making it highly vulnerable to cyber crime. The list of potential exposures is long: from data breaches of sensitive information about clients to ransomware attacks, cybercriminals consider real estate companies high-value targets for all types of sensitive information they carry.
In this article, we look at the major cybersecurity risks in real estate and give actionable tips to help mitigate them.
Data breaches are one of the major kinds of cyber dangers against which real estate needs to protect itself today. Real estate companies retain quite a substantial volume of sensitive information-personal details of buyers, sellers, tenants, financial information, and transaction data.
If a breach occurs, this information may get compromised, resulting in financial loss, reputational damage, and even possible legal consequences.
Data breaches can be terribly expensive in terms of direct financial loss and also damage to client trust earned. It is paramount to ensure that sensitive data is highly restricted in terms of access and properly encrypted. That means even though unauthorised people could have gained access to the sensitive data, it is encrypted so they will not be able to do anything with it.
Encryption becomes a barrier to prevent the misuse of data, even if it is intercepted. What's more, logging data on who has accessed the data and using real-time monitoring allow for the uncanny activity detection before the breach becomes a breach.
Phishing and social engineering are some of the major headaches when it comes to cyber-attacks in real estate. Quite often, employees get misled by certain legitimate-looking emails or messages that would ask them to reveal sensitive information or grant unauthorised access. If they fall into this trap, then compromised login credentials or facilitating a larger attack could be the repercussions.
The best defences against phishing are cybersecurity training and awareness among employees. Each real estate company should train its team in recognizing phishing attempts and checking the authenticity of emails or links before they click on them. It needs to be taught that, first of all, employees verify email addresses; do not download attachments from unknown sources; report immediately if anything suspicious is found.
Email filtering solutions can also help minimise the possibility of phishing emails landing in the inboxes of employees. This can be furthered with a zero-trust policy-a course of verification at each and every step.
Another major concern in the real estate sector is ransomware attacks. This is a kind of cyber-attack whereby the cyber-attackers encrypt company data and then demand a ransom for its restoration. The aftermath of ransomware can be crippling, where business operations come to a standstill, mostly leading to heavy losses, and in some cases, data may remain unrecoverable even after the ransom is paid.. For instance, in wholesale real estate, this could mean the loss of crucial information about transactions, contracts, and client communications.
Companies can minimise the possibility of ransomware by updating and patching the systems for known vulnerabilities. Do regular backups of all data, which would be used to restore the data without any need to pay a ransom. These must be kept on a separate network or, better still, offline or in a secure cloud. These provide early detection and prevention of ransomware with real-time scanning of antivirus installation software before it causes further damage to other systems.
Riding the wave of digital transformation in real estate, smart building technology and the IoT have brought new efficiencies to real estate but also new vulnerabilities. Devices like smart security systems, HVAC systems, and other tools using IoT introduce various possible points of access to building systems or networks if their security measures are not properly configured.
Thus, setting up IoT devices with robust, unique passwords will lower the number of IoT vulnerabilities. Most of the IoT devices are configured with default passwords, which should be updated immediately after installation.
IoT devices need to be updated or patched in a regular fashion, and features not required or used should also be disabled in order to reduce the attack surface. Isolating IoT devices on a separate network from critical company data limits the potential impact if the IoT devices are compromised.
The best way to minimise real estate cyber security risks would probably be through employee training and awareness. Most of these attacks, such as phishing and social engineering, rely on human error. That is why teaching employees to identify suspicious activity is of utmost importance. They should know how to identify phishing emails, not click on suspicious links, and report incidents without wasting a single minute.
This training needs to be ongoing and, in reality, a briefing on new types of cyberattacks and how to manage them regularly. Phishing simulations can also be effective in making the employee understand how easily they could be tricked and teaching them to be cautious. The informed workforce is the first line of defense in real estate security.
Encryption of data perhaps is the most critical ingredient of cyber security in the real estate industry. The data, at rest and in transit, must be encrypted-that is, even when intercepted, it could not be read by anyone without the correct decryption keys. In addition, sensitive data can only be accessed by those employees who need such information to perform their functions, and this access must be strongly authenticated.
It ensures that access controls of a multilevel nature can grant access to employees on a need-to-know basis. This practice is normally referred to as the principle of least privilege, whereby an employee does not have access to information unless it is absolutely necessary. This helps minimise exposure should there be a compromise of any single employee account.
Bad actors often exploit open vulnerabilities when software is not updated. Software, operating systems, and all devices should be updated with the latest patches. Automating patch management will facilitate timely updates and help minimize the likelihood of successful exploitation. All this constitutes one simple yet highly effective practice in the quest to address cyber security real estate threats.
Second, frequent vulnerability assessments aid in the detection of system weaknesses before the bad guys can. This might save a lot of trouble at the far end and help prevent most incidents before they happen.
MFA enhances this by making users verify their identity in more than one form, meaning not just a password, but a code sent to your phone, for example, in order to access some system or another. Through MFA, an organisation can really minimise the possibility of unauthorised access, even when a user's password has been compromised.
MFA is especially critical in system access that contains sensitive information, financial data of clients, or other critical assets. It would seem inconvenient to an additional step, but it can sometimes make the world of difference in ensuring real estate security.
Having a tangible cyber incident response plan in place helps bring such cyberattacks' impacts down. This would need to specify the processes involved in threat containment, damage assessment, and recovery of systems in case of data breaches or other incidents. An incident response plan ensures that companies can respond quickly and effectively, minimising downtime and any potential loss.
It is also very important to conduct regular cyber drills so one would know what his or her role was once some incident has occurred. The more prepared a company is, the quicker it can react, thus lessening the fallout. This readiness could make all the difference in an industry where timing could sometimes be crucial.
Real estate companies have to deal with different third-party service providers, from property management software to marketing services. These might require access to sensitive information, which makes things a little riskier should their security not be as it should be. This requires the assessment of cybersecurity practices by all vendors as part of compliance with industry standards for data protection.
But just one weak link in the chain of vendors can open up an entire company to risk. Deep assessments and developing incident response plans for vendors become especially required at this stage to ensure the integrity of the overall cybersecurity posture.
As the digital transformation in real estate continues to rise, the risks associated with cyber threats are something that have never been seen before. Real estate cybersecurity needs to become a critical priority among every enterprise involved in this industry, whether related to data breaches, phishing attacks, ransomware, or even IoT vulnerabilities.
Proactive measures in employee training and data encryption, system updates, multi-factor authentication, and incident response plan will have real estate firms prevent and build resilience amidst cyber threats.