In the commercial real estate business, protecting your building’s internet and data is as important as physically securing your doors and valuables. To remain competitive or even leapfrog your competition in this technology-driven world, CRE’s must invest more in interconnected technologies. This somewhat unavoidable investment increases your buildings exposure to the booming industry, cyber crime. 

Earlier this year, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and McAfee estimated the economic impact of cybercrime is nearly 1% of global GDP ($600 billion) annually.  A recent panel discussion on the report’s findings emphasized three key points: 

1. Internet connectivity has opened a vast terrain for cybercrime, and IP theft goes well beyond traditional areas of interest to governments, such as military technologies. 
2. Ransomware is the fastest growing cybercrime with Russia and North Korea being the world leaders in malicious cyber activity. 
3. Commercial cybercrime remains underreported because there’s no incentive to report these incidents as they may put the brand at risk to further damage.

How to Minimize Exposure to Cybercrime

There are many ways to decrease the risk that your CRE business will be a victom of cybercrime. Here’s our top considerations:

1. Hire Hackers: Companies like Tesla, Nintendo, Uber, Google and Microsoft hire hackers to find security holes before anyone else.  Having a dedicated team of hackers perform regular system and security checks, is like checking the office door when leaving the office.
2. Monitor Employee Activity: Because cybercriminals may not be located in far-off countries but within your company, securing your technology and data should include 24-hour monitoring and automatic access control systems. 
3. Minimize Social Engineering:  Local criminals may use simple conversational techniques to get personal information to access your system. Establish a digital protection plan that includes never exchanging passwords verbally or creating passwords from words and phrases familiar to you.

NEXT STEPS

• Discover how to future-proof your commercial real estate.
• Subscribe to our blog to stay informed about the latest security news and insight.
• Stay up to date on security topics such as home alarm systems, business security systems, video surveillance systems, IP video networks, remote video monitoring, fire alarm systems, and fire alarm inspection.