As real estate businesses gain traction on the road to digitalisation, embracing all the benefits that PropTech solutions can provide, it’s critical to stay on top of cybersecurity.

 

Post-COVID, as more and more businesses have adopted technology solutions to enable and improve operations in hybrid working environments, cyber threats have been on the rise too. According to British telecommunications giant, BT, “More than 46 million signals of potential cyber-attacks are spotted by cyber security experts every day around the world.”1 A 2023 study conducted by IBM indicates that the global average cost of a single data breach was USD4.45 million, representing a 15% increase over three years.2

 

Given that real estate businesses deal with exactly the kind of data that hackers would like to get their hands on – bank account details, ID numbers and other personal information – the industry is an obvious target for cyber-attack. As more and more real estate businesses adopt PropTech solutions to reap operational and cost efficiency rewards like improved utilities and building management, smoother tenant engagement and more efficient leasing, keeping all that data secure is vital. So how do you make sure that your cybersecurity measures are keeping pace as you digitally transform your business?

 

The human factor

Most cyberattacks happen through human error. Customers falling for phishing schemes, employees failing to follow security best practices and other avoidable human errors are responsible for as much as 82% of data breaches, according to Verizon3. Though it’s seldom intentional, people are your business’ biggest weakness when it comes to securing data. Implementing regular cybersecurity training for your employees, and engaging with your tenants to help them avoid falling prey to scams, will go a long way to protecting your data.

 

Make cybersecurity part of risk management

Ensure that cybersecurity is on the agenda in your management meetings and included in your risk management efforts. Assessing and understanding your risks is the first step, followed by prioritising the risks that have the biggest potential to cause harm. From here it’s important to understand what your existing solutions include in terms of security, and where the gaps are, as well as to put a robust incident response in place should something go wrong.

 

Form the right partnership

Cybersecurity skills are rare. The cybersecurity workforce gap is estimated at around 3.4 million people worldwide4, meaning that hiring your own crackerjack team of cybersecurity ninjas is not an easy task. Partnering with a managed services provider is the most effective way to gain access to these rare skills and ensure your security environment is keeping up with the threat environment. The right partner can guide you on how to get the basics in place, and how to close the gaps you’ve identified in your current systems. They should also be able to help to automate day-to-day security hygiene measures, like monitoring and patching, as well as other routinised security tasks.

 

Real estate businesses must take advantage of PropTech solutions to ensure their profitability and sustainability going forward. Protecting your business against data breaches and maintaining client trust is paramount in a digitally enabled world, and so is proactively securing business data.