Not for Sale: 5 Cyber Security Best Practices for Real Estate Firms

In this day and age, all markets and industries are relying on information technology in order to propel their business forward. one of the inherent risks that come with this reliance on technology is cyber security risks.

The simple truth is that there are many nefarious individuals out there with less-than-good intentions seeking to create financial gain from themselves at the expense of your company. Thus, it’s absolutely imperative that you implement cyber security best practices to protect your organization.

1. Password Hygiene

The first thing to consider with cyber security is password hygiene. Password hygiene relates to the quality and strength of the passwords used by your users as they log on to your networks.

Password hygiene is very important. Weak passwords that are some amalgamation of your current name or birthday or other biographical information can be easily guessed by would-be hackers in brute-force attacks.

2. Secure Networks

The next thing to consider is that you have to have secured networks. All of the networks that you transmit proprietary data on should have firewalls set in place.

Otherwise, your system could easily fall prey to scammers or to other real estate agencies looking to financially gain off of your hard work.

3. Consider Physical Security

Cyber security isn’t just only strictly measures that you put in place digitally. You should also put in physical security measures in order to protect yourself from allowing hackers to gain physical access to your technological devices. This means educating your personnel to not let unauthorized people into the building or let any prospects or customers hang around the building unsupervised.

4. Integrate Systems as Much as Possible

The next thing to consider with your cyber security principles is to integrate systems as much as possible. You want to leverage integrated systems technology to combine as many systems into one. When you have a lot of different systems all over the place, that makes it harder and harder to protect each one of those systems.

On the other hand, if you have everything combined into as few systems as possible, it becomes much easier to set up firewalls for those few systems. More systems mean more opportunities for your firewalls to fail and for hackers to gain access.

5. Provide Devices to Your Employees

Last but not least, one of the best ways to protect your employees is to provide them with devices for the use of their work. Don’t let them work on their personal devices. This is so that you can set up protections and firewalls on those devices that contain data relevant to your company.

Cyber Security Best Practices for Real Estate Firms

There you have it — by implementing these cyber security best practices in your real estate firm, you will protect your company from experiencing the negative effects of being successfully targeted by hackers. These measures are easy to implement, so be sure not to delay!

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