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Real estate agency owners are being encouraged to rethink their cyber crime protection strategies, with prevention potentially “not enough” to keep small businesses safe.
According to BizCover’s Jane Mason, small real estate businesses are increasingly becoming targets, “and despite their best efforts, they may be left to deal with the consequences if an attack does occur”.
She raised that if the likes of Optus and Medibank are able to see their systems breached, then agencies must beware.
Not only should they collect less personal information, particularly in the residential leasing side of the industry, they should also take proactive measures to increase their cyber security measures.
Some of these are outlined here.
But, Ms Mason acknowledged that such measures might not be enough — especially with a recent survey from the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) revealing that six in 10 respondents didn’t have a cyber response plan in place.
This is especially concerning when the impact of a cyber attack can be hard to quantify.
According to BizCover, not only would businesses need to deal with the cost of recovering the data and investigating the attack, but they would also likely need to account for business interruption costs and the expense of bolstering their cyber defences.
There are also the costs associated with the PR fallout and the potential of being liable for fines and legal fees associated with the victims of the attack, with the government looking to increase fines for privacy breaches.
This is all occurring against a backdrop where the Australian government is also looking to introduce tighter legislation aimed at upping the cyber security measures taken by businesses.
Ms Mason has acknowledged that many small businesses “don’t have the financial clout or time needed to protect their business from the threat of cyber crime and will likely need to consider having a financial safeguard in place if things go wrong”.
Conceding that while risk mitigation is important, she acknowledged that “sometimes things can slip through”.
That’s why she urges real estate business owners to cover themselves against the potential expenses and legal costs associated with data breaches — pointing to the existence of cyber liability insurance as just one safeguard.
Such policies can reportedly include cover for costs relating to data breaches, network security breaches, business interruption costs, forensic investigations into the cause or scope of a breach, data recovery costs, cyber extortion, and crisis management costs — and possibly even fines and penalties resulting from third-party claims for data breaches against a business.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grace Ormsby
Grace is a journalist across Momentum property and investment brands. Grace joined Momentum Media in 2018, bringing with her a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from the University of Newcastle. She’s passionate about delivering easy to digest information and content relevant to her key audiences and stakeholders.
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