May 2024 | Dallas, TX – In today’s Commercial Real Estate (CRE) market, it is important for professionals to safeguard themselves against growing cybersecurity threats.
In a webinar with RealFoundations’ CEO of Managed Services Dan Sterk and Global Head of Modern Workplace Services Nate Fyie were joined by the team at 5Q Partners including Jeff Ewing, VP of Operations, Dean Hook, Strategic Cyber Security Advisor, and Russ Farr, Director of Cyber Security Engineering, to explore the obstacles CRE professionals face in executing strategies and discuss what it takes to develop a lasting and impactful cybersecurity strategy.
Understanding the Challenges to Overcome Common Obstacles
Cybersecurity can be an even bigger obstacle for the CRE ecosystem as the surface area for points of entry is exponential – from data management systems to investment portfolios to tenant portals and more. There are also several other company-wide challenges that can leave organizations vulnerable to attacks:
- IT teams are overwhelmed. The proliferation of software applications in company tech stacks has substantially increased the number of support tickets IT departments must sift through day-to-day. These teams struggle to prioritize requests and address the needs of the company in a timely manner.
- Employees don’t have the education they need to be effective safeguards. As cybersecurity threats evolve and adapt, it becomes increasingly difficult for employees to learn how to protect themselves and the company. A clear directive from leadership is important to help inform processes and protocols to protect data, especially with third-party vendors.
- Cybersecurity budgets are growing, but still have limits. These budgets have seen a more than 40% increase in the last few years and can be used to drive awareness for security processes and even cover damage assessments after a security breach, but higher costs are seen when trying to hire top talent and the best tools for monitoring.
Cybersecurity may pose significant challenges for the CRE ecosystem, however, there are new strategies and applications in place–outside of technology–to improve overall efficiencies and strengthen protections for organizations.
How to Strengthen Cybersecurity Safeguarding
It is evident that cybersecurity will continue to evolve and remain a growing threat to the CRE industry. In order to strengthen protection, organizations need to act fast and make adjustments to current strategies. A few initiatives we outlined during our discussion included:
- Maturity Assessments will lay out a roadmap and act as a voice of clarity that highlights where and what points of entry the company needs to focus on next.
- Table-Top Processes are a business exercise that allow companies to practice real-life scenarios through simulations of incident response plans.
- Continuous Monitoring through systems that process large amounts of data with a designated team to analyze the outputs properly is a simple solution that makes for an impactful cybersecurity strategy.
Maturity assessments combined with continuous monitoring alone can account for about 40% of the entire cybersecurity plan. Having those in place will create a solid foundation to execute cybersecurity strategies and put companies in a better position to protect themselves.
Obstacles in tackling security issues is an operational issue—not a tech issue. Cybersecurity strategies are ongoing and must be adaptable to ever-changing business demands and landscapes. Continual investment in cybersecurity is necessary because it cannot be solved with just technology and services. It requires all employees and stakeholders to commit to incident response processes and ensure everyone is putting in the time and effort to make the organizations more resilient to cyberattacks.
Connect with Us
Connect with RealFoundations’ Dan Sterk or Nate Fyie to discuss how Modern Workplace Services can help your real estate company run better.
About 5Q Partners
5Q Partners is specifically designed to provide top-notch IT and cyber security services to commercial real estate (CRE) organizations. Equipped with expert team members in a range of IT and cyber security functions as well as in-depth knowledge of Commercial Real Estate back-office functionality, 5Q is prepared to support and service CRE organizations’ technology and cyber security requirements from top to bottom.
About RealFoundations
RealFoundations (RF) is the world’s foremost professional services firm focused solely on the real estate industry. Through our delivery of Management Consulting and Managed Services, we help companies that develop, own, operate, service or invest in real estate make better, more profitable decisions. We are proud partners to over 500 real estate companies around the globe, providing accelerated solutions that solve some of real estate’s most complex challenges. We Make Real Estate Run Better.
