{"id":4865,"date":"2017-06-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/how-to-keep-hackers-out-of-your-email\/"},"modified":"2017-06-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T00:00:00","slug":"how-to-keep-hackers-out-of-your-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/how-to-keep-hackers-out-of-your-email\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Keep Hackers Out of Your Email"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Panelists at the IDFPR Cybersecurity Conference discuss the prevalence of email as a vehicle for cybercrime and business professionals can secure their own email accounts.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The FBI reports that email phishing accounts for 95 percent of cybersecurity threats. That\u2019s why client communications are a key component of \u201ccyber hygiene,\u201d legal and law enforcement experts said during the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation\u2019s Cybersecurity Conference in Chicago, which focused on threats to the real estate<\/a> industry.<\/p>\n

The typical advice<\/a> to employ complicated passwords and change them often isn\u2019t enough to thwart hackers, said FBI special agent Daniel Wierzbicki, who leads a team of cybercrime watchdogs at the agency\u2019s Chicago field office. The email platform you choose to conduct business communications may make you more vulnerable to cyberattacks. \u201cA lot of real estate professionals use private Gmail accounts or accounts with other email providers to do transactions with customers instead of using company accounts,\u201d Wierzbicki said. \u201cBut a lot of company accounts have better systems in place to protect against hacking activity; Gmail does not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email hacking has become so pervasive that cybercrime now ranks as the FBI\u2019s third-highest priority after terrorism and counterintelligence, he said. And the real estate industry is a major target for criminals. Last year, Wierzbicki\u2019s office fielded 551 cybersecurity complaints from customers in real estate transactions and 328 complaints from title companies. Together, that accounted for 64 percent of the cybercrime victims the office responded to in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what your email system is, it\u2019s not a great vehicle for sensitive information,\u201d said Jessica Edgerton, associate council for the National Association of REALTORS\u00ae. She suggested using a third-party transaction management or document sharing platform rather than email when transferring private client information\u2014but even that isn\u2019t infallible. \u201cAlmost every company has experienced some level of data breach,\u201d she said. \u201cKnow your third-party providers and how they have reacted to past security breaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

A common practice involves cybercriminals hacking into practitioners\u2019 email accounts and sending fraudulent wire-transfer instructions to their clients. That\u2019s why having a strong email password is so important. Wierzbicki suggested longer passwords\u2014at least 26 characters\u2014is more secure than making them overly complicated with capital letters and symbols.<\/p>\n

Edgerton added that frequently changing passwords also isn\u2019t the best prevention against cybersecurity threats. If you use a pattern that\u2019s easy to guess to update your passwords more frequently, \u201cit may actually give hackers an in [to breach your email],\u201d she said. Edgerton recommended using a password management system to store passwords; then you can ensure each one meets security standards without worrying about forgetting them.<\/p>\n

One low-tech way real estate professionals can combat this problem is to educate their contacts. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t aware of what\u2019s happening,\u201d Edgerton said. \u201cWhen it comes to a real estate transaction, you have so many different players, and all it takes is one person in that transaction who isn\u2019t aware of the signs of fraud to make the whole thing implode. \u2026 As the initiators of a transaction, you can spread the word about these security problems to everyone in the transaction who needs to know about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Graham Wood<\/a>, REALTOR\u00ae Magazine\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[ad_1] Panelists at the IDFPR Cybersecurity Conference discuss the prevalence of email as a vehicle for … How to Keep Hackers Out of Your Email<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[695,4751,6997,1330,41,818,84,1429,479,15296],"class_list":["post-4865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opportunities-in-new-markets","tag-agent","tag-amazing","tag-dogs","tag-financial","tag-property","tag-real","tag-real-estate","tag-real-estate-industry","tag-realtor","tag-target"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/jun17_cyber.jpg?fit=600%2C413&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94120,"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4865\/revisions\/94120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amazingproperty.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}