How Does Cyber Security Affect Your Real Estate Purchase?

Over the past decade, industries of all sorts have begun to tackle the increasing percentage of cybercrime attacks online. With that in mind, the Real Estate Industry is no stranger to such attacks. Home to important property information, custom banking, and even basic transactions involving large sums of money, the real estate industry is often more readily exposed to said malware.

As real estate companies, agents and even FSBO individuals often work online with housing listings and hosted real estate systems, you’re going to want to better understand the most frequent types of real estate cybercrime, as well as the proper solutions to avoid data theft.

Here are some of the ways cyber security can affect your real estate transaction, and how a title & closing company can mitigate these risks:

• Compromised Email Transfers
• Ransomware Attacks
• Cloud Vender Issues
• Utilize Secure Systems

Compromised Email Transfers

As business transfer emails report losses at over $3 billion due to cybercrime, compromised banking transfers can wreak havoc on your real estate transaction. As one of the most popular cyber attacks used by hackers, compromised email transactions can affect anyone from real estate agents, buyers or sellers, as well as anyone else in the industry. A BEC, or business email compromised attack convinces businesses or those involved in a real estate transaction to wire funds to an account by an impersonator.

In the case of real estate, this impersonator would likely be someone pretending to be the sellers of the property in question. In most cases, these types of cybercrime hackers will send an email from a fake account that looks similar to the person or company you’re working with. Often, they may even use the name of the name of a trusted party involved in the transaction. In order to avoid such cybercrimes, working with a Law and Real Estate Title Company can ensure a protected, successful transaction.

Ransomware Attacks

Often tied hand in hand with email transfer attacks, cybercriminals will often engage in ransomware attacks as well. After having sent out malicious emails, if a party involved in your real estate transaction falls victim to clicking on the imposter link, a cybercriminal has the opportunity to easily encrypt all of the company or individual’s data and resources. A successful ransomware attack will often result in access to the exploited data and resources as well as the potential to block said assets until a specific ransom amount is paid outside of the original imposter transaction.

Due to massive amounts of employee data, significant sums of money in accounts, confidential real estate transaction information and so much more, the Real Estate Industry is often targeted for such cyber-attacks. When you work with a reliable Real Estate Title Company, you can rest assured that your digital assets, private information and transactional finances will be safe and effectively encrypted with protective solutions.

Contact Rochford Law & Real Estate Title today.

Cloud Vendor Issues

When it comes to cloud vendor-based cybercrime, real estate professionals will want to stay up to date with the latest technology on securing business devices and enforce strong password protection. As more and more real estate companies are integrating cloud security services and platforms into their strategy, cybercriminals still have the ability to attack these cloud vendors to access your information. While this is the less frequent option of cyber-attacks, you’ll want to ensure that your cloud services allow your team the ability to monitor software security and to easily detect breaches.

Especially true for larger real estate companies, proper cloud protective services will serve the best interest of your digital assets, as well as the protection of your customer transactions. The implementation of cloud security protects transactional data, adheres to regulatory compliance, and protects digital asset privacy. Solutions such as these can also work to protect these companies from any reputational, financial, or legal consequences of cybercrime and data loss.

Rochford Law & Real Estate Title

The digital revolution is inevitable. Due to this, the real estate industry faces a challenge in securing its digital platforms and tools. However, the advantages of digitization outweigh the cybersecurity concerns. Therefore, when you work with a reliable Law & Real Estate Title Firm, you won’t have to worry about your crucial data and information being stolen or negatively impacting your real estate transaction.

The buying of a property is a major financial investment, and the closing process is one of the most critical aspects of the entire transaction. At the end of the closing, the property legally becomes yours and buyers will usually walk away with a brand-new set of keys. Because buying a residential or commercial space costs a lot of money, effective cyber security efforts will be important in protecting your real estate transaction.

For more information or help with your closing process, contact Rochford Law & Real Estate Title today.