Real Estate, Updates, News & Tips

The real estate industry is being increasingly targeted by cybercriminals. A new report from the cybersecurity firm eSentire shows that real estate was the second highest industry hit with malware events in the second quarter of 2018. The real estate–related attacks usually center around internet communications and insecure connectivity to the internet. Real estate also sees a high volume of attacks aimed at D-Link home routers. If a hacker takes control of a router, they will be able to tamper with several online activities, including inserting themselves into your transactions. eSentire highlights the three most common malware attacks affecting the real estate industry:

• Kovter: Malware that usually arrives through a malicious email spam. The scammer then copies your data and steals personal information.
• Coinminers: This attack sets out to inflate the scammer’s cryptocurrency wallet. The currency can be used in real estate dealings.
• DNSChanger: Attacks that come from “malvertising,” in which the malware modifies a website or DNS entries of the victim’s assets so that they will go through numerous advertisement pages as the user browses normally. This can exhaust the victim’s computer resources and generate fraudulent ad revenue, too.

Some additional findings from the report: Be particularly vigilant Tuesday through Thursday. Cyberattacks can happen at any time, but businesses were found to be 2.5 times more likely to fall victim to a phishing attack between Tuesdays and Thursdays. Watch for fake invoices. The most common way to disguise malware for businesses is through an “invoice.” Don’t be ignorant. For every 33 employees, you can expect one phishing attack per quarter, the report finds. Don’t believe software will always protect you. Antivirus software usually lags 30 days behind evolving malware in detecting it.