Real estate and development firms are prime targets for cybercrime. The combination of high-value wire transfers, sensitive client financial data, and a complex ecosystem of partners creates significant risk. Attackers specifically target this sector with sophisticated business email compromise (BEC) and wire fraud schemes that can instantly derail a closing, destroy client trust, and lead to catastrophic financial loss. Finding the right cybersecurity services for real estate and development firms is no longer an IT decision—it's a core business strategy for protecting assets and reputation.
As the industry continues to adopt proptech and other digital tools to streamline operations, the potential for security vulnerabilities grows. Each new platform, remote agent, or third-party vendor connection expands your firm's attack surface. A comprehensive approach to IT support for real estate is essential for managing these risks effectively. This guide provides a clear, ROI-focused overview of leading security providers, helping you evaluate partners who understand the unique challenges of your industry and can deliver a measurable return on your security investment.
Generic, off-the-shelf security solutions are insufficient for the specific, high-stakes threats facing the real estate sector. A specialized provider understands the transaction lifecycle, the regulatory landscape, and the common tactics used by criminals targeting your industry. Investing in tailored protection is a critical measure for operational continuity and risk management.
The data clearly illustrates the financial and operational risks of inadequate security. These statistics underscore why proactive investment in cybersecurity is a sound business decision that protects your bottom line and ensures long-term stability.
To build this list, we focused on practical, business-oriented factors that matter most to real estate and development leaders. Our evaluation prioritized providers who deliver tangible value, understand industry-specific risks, and offer predictable, scalable solutions. We filtered for partners who act as a strategic asset, not just a technical vendor.
The following providers have been selected based on their ability to address the specific security challenges of the real estate and development industry. This list includes a mix of all-in-one managed IT partners, specialized security tool providers, and compliance experts to help you find the right fit for your firm's unique needs.
Role: All-in-One Managed IT and Cybersecurity
Snapshot: Cortavo delivers a complete, flat-fee managed IT solution that bundles cybersecurity, 24/7 help desk support, connectivity, hardware, and strategic consulting. This integrated approach eliminates the complexity of managing multiple vendors and ensures all technology components work together securely. By packaging enterprise-grade security tools like EDR, MFA, and security awareness training with unlimited support, Cortavo provides a predictable, cost-effective way for firms to protect their operations. Their model is designed to scale, supporting everyone from small brokerages to large development companies with a single, accountable partner for all their technology needs.
Core Strength: Integrated, predictable-cost IT and security management that simplifies operations and budgeting.
Best For: Real estate firms seeking a single partner to manage all technology and security for a flat monthly fee.
Pro Tip: Use their vCIO services to align your technology roadmap with your firm's long-term growth goals.
Role: Transaction Security Specialists
Snapshot: SecureClose focuses specifically on hardening the technologies and processes involved in the real estate closing lifecycle. They provide solutions designed to prevent wire fraud, secure client communications, and ensure the integrity of digital documents. Their services include encrypted communication portals for sharing sensitive information, identity verification tools for all parties in a transaction, and secure e-signature platforms. By concentrating on the most vulnerable phase of a real estate deal, SecureClose helps mitigate the single largest financial threat that brokerages and title companies face today.
Core Strength: Deep expertise in securing the financial and communication aspects of the closing process.
Best For: Title companies, law firms, and brokerages that want to add a specialized layer of security around transactions.
Pro Tip: Integrate their platform with your existing transaction management software for a seamless user experience.
Role: Collective Defense Platform
Snapshot: IronNet offers a unique approach to cybersecurity through its Collective Defense platform. It enables real estate firms to anonymously share threat intelligence in real time, providing visibility into industry-specific attack campaigns that might otherwise go undetected. This network effect means that an attack on one firm can be used to build defenses for all other members of the collective. Their platform uses advanced behavioral analytics to detect unknown threats across network traffic, cloud environments, and endpoints, offering a proactive defense against sophisticated adversaries targeting the sector.
Core Strength: Real-time, industry-wide threat intelligence sharing for proactive defense.
Best For: Larger development firms and national brokerages looking for advanced, proactive threat detection.
Pro Tip: Leverage their threat intelligence reports to educate your leadership team on emerging industry risks.
Role: Managed IT for Financial & Real Estate Sectors
Snapshot: With roots in the highly regulated financial services industry, Abacus Group brings a compliance-first mindset to managed IT and cybersecurity for real estate firms. They provide comprehensive services, including private cloud hosting, 24/7 support, and a robust security stack designed to meet stringent data protection standards. Their expertise is particularly valuable for real estate investment trusts (REITs) and development firms that handle investor data and face complex regulatory requirements. Abacus helps firms build and maintain a secure, auditable IT environment that protects sensitive information and satisfies stakeholders.
Core Strength: A strong focus on compliance, data governance, and institutional-grade security protocols.
Best For: Real estate investment firms and developers with strict compliance and investor reporting obligations.
Pro Tip: Use their compliance expertise to prepare for SOC 2 audits or other regulatory assessments.
Role: Security Awareness Training
Snapshot: KnowBe4 addresses the human element of cybersecurity, which is often the weakest link. Their platform provides ongoing security awareness training and simulated phishing campaigns to teach employees how to recognize and report threats like BEC and ransomware. For real estate, where a single click on a malicious link can lead to wire fraud, this training is critical. The platform offers a vast library of training content and allows firms to run customized phishing tests on their agents and staff, providing metrics to track improvement and identify high-risk users over time.
Core Strength: Comprehensive, engaging employee training to reduce human error and build a security-conscious culture.
Best For: Firms of all sizes wanting to empower their employees as a first line of defense.
Pro Tip: Run quarterly phishing simulations to keep your team's security awareness sharp and measure progress.
Role: Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
Snapshot: CrowdStrike is a market leader in protecting endpoints—the laptops, desktops, and mobile devices used by your team. This is especially critical for real estate's decentralized workforce. Their Falcon platform uses artificial intelligence and behavioral analysis to prevent, detect, and respond to threats in real time, stopping breaches before they can cause damage. Unlike traditional antivirus software, CrowdStrike provides deep visibility into endpoint activity, allowing for rapid investigation and remediation of any suspicious behavior, whether an agent is in the office or working from a remote location.
Core Strength: Best-in-class endpoint protection to secure a distributed and mobile workforce.
Best For: Firms with a large number of remote or traveling agents who need robust device security.
Pro Tip: Pair their EDR solution with a managed service for 24/7 threat monitoring and response.
Role: Advanced Email Security
Snapshot: Since email is the primary vector for wire fraud and other attacks in real estate, securing it is a top priority. Mimecast provides a comprehensive suite of cloud-based email security services. Their platform goes far beyond standard spam filtering, offering protection against malware, impersonation attempts (BEC), and malicious URLs. It also includes features like email archiving for compliance and continuity services that keep email operational even during an outage of your primary mail server. For real estate firms, Mimecast acts as a critical gatekeeper, neutralizing threats before they reach an employee's inbox.
Core Strength: Multi-layered email security specifically designed to combat business email compromise and phishing.
Best For: Any real estate firm looking to significantly reduce the risk of wire fraud and email-based attacks.
Pro Tip: Implement their URL and attachment sandboxing features to protect against zero-day threats.
Role: Boutique Cybersecurity for Brokerages
Snapshot: RealtyProtect is a boutique managed security service provider (MSSP) that caters exclusively to small and mid-sized real estate brokerages. They understand the resource constraints and specific risks these firms face. Their services are packaged to be accessible and easy to implement, covering essentials like managed firewalls, endpoint security, secure data backup, and employee training. They act as a dedicated security team for brokerages that lack in-house IT expertise, providing practical guidance and hands-on support to ensure the firm and its agents are protected against common threats.
Core Strength: Tailored, all-in-one security packages and personalized support for smaller brokerages.
Best For: Independent and small to mid-sized brokerages needing a dedicated, industry-focused security partner.
Pro Tip: Use their risk assessment service to identify your firm's most critical security gaps quickly.
Role: Cloud and Application Security
Snapshot: As firms increasingly rely on cloud-based proptech platforms for everything from CRM to property management, securing these applications is vital. PropTech Secure specializes in cloud security posture management (CSPM) and application security for the real estate industry. They help firms configure their cloud environments (like AWS or Azure) securely, vet the security of third-party software vendors, and ensure that data flowing between different platforms is encrypted and protected. Their services are essential for development firms and property managers leveraging complex, interconnected technology stacks.
Core Strength: Expertise in securing cloud infrastructure and the integrations between various proptech applications.
Best For: Development and property management firms that rely heavily on a diverse set of cloud-based software.
Pro Tip: Request they perform a security audit of your key software vendors to manage third-party risk.
Role: Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
Snapshot: Arctic Wolf provides a 24/7 security operations center (SOC) as a service. Their team of experts continuously monitors your network, cloud environments, and endpoints to detect, analyze, and respond to threats. This service is crucial for identifying sophisticated attacks that automated tools might miss. For real estate firms, having this constant vigilance means that suspicious activity—like an unauthorized login to an agent's email account at 3 a.m.—is immediately investigated and contained. Arctic Wolf effectively gives firms an enterprise-grade security team without the high cost of building one internally.
Core Strength: 24/7 human-led threat hunting, monitoring, and incident response.
Best For: Firms that need continuous security monitoring but lack the internal staff to provide it.
Pro Tip: Integrate their service with your key cloud applications for comprehensive threat visibility.
Our process is designed to be straightforward and efficient, getting you the right protection without disrupting your business.
We deliver more than just security; we provide a complete, predictable IT management solution that allows you to focus on your core business.
The risks of wire fraud, data breaches, and operational disruption in the real estate industry are too significant to address with a patchwork of solutions. Protecting your firm's assets, client data, and reputation requires a strategic, proactive approach to security. Partnering with a provider that understands your industry's unique challenges is the most effective way to ensure compliance, maintain operational continuity, and build client trust. A comprehensive managed services plan is a strategic investment that delivers peace of mind, allowing you to focus on closing deals and growing your business. To protect your assets and reputation, invest in one of the leading cybersecurity services for real estate and development firms. Let's talk!
Preventing wire transfer fraud is paramount. This requires a multi-layered approach: advanced email security to block phishing, mandatory Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all accounts, and regular employee training to spot fraudulent requests.
Yes. Cybercriminals often target smaller firms, assuming they have weaker defenses. The financial and reputational cost of a single breach can be devastating, and a managed service provides enterprise-grade security at a predictable, cost-effective price.
Traditional IT support is reactive—it fixes problems after they occur. Managed cybersecurity is proactive, continuously monitoring, managing, and updating your defenses to prevent incidents from happening in the first place. Leading providers bundle both for comprehensive coverage.
While costs vary, a key benefit of a flat-fee managed IT plan is budget predictability. You pay one monthly fee for a full suite of services, including cybersecurity, which eliminates surprise costs from security incidents or emergency support calls.