Research studies are becoming very popular on the topic of cybersecurity. Unfortunately, none of them are focused or include residential real estate firms among their survey audience so much of the information is anecdotal at best e.g. the average cost of a breach is approximately $200 per compromised record.

That said, the above chart I feel is one stat that is somewhat applicable to our industry. This is the root source of a data breach. 50% bad guys, 23% staff error and 27% system error. Our guess for the real estate industry is the system glitch % is a little high considering we don’t have that many enterprise-wide systems compared to other industries such as Financial Services or Health Care. Which means over 80% of breaches are human-related either bad guys or staff error. Both can be reduced through education and awareness.

* Data from the Ponemon Institute© Research Report