EMTAR is focusing our blogs throughout October on Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This year’s theme is a simple one: Don’t Make It Easy for Them.

The National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA), which recognize this month along with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is encouraging individuals and businesses to focus on the small, everyday habits that make life harder for cybercriminals.

That message is especially relevant for our REALTOR members.

Think about how much of a real estate transaction happens digitally here in Wilson, Smith, and DeKalb counties. Emails fly back and forth. Contracts are signed electronically. Documents are uploaded and downloaded. Buyers, sellers, lenders, title companies, attorneys, and real estate professionals may all be communicating online throughout a single transaction.

We know, this isn’t exactly news to our members, but not only do cybercriminals also know all of that, but they are working nonstop to find new ways to crack into all of the transaction processes involved in the purchase or sale of a property.

For that reason, we need to keep raising our level of awareness as well.

Fortunately, protecting yourself doesn’t require becoming a cybersecurity expert.

For its part, the NCA recommends starting with four basic, mostly commonsense steps:

• Use strong passwords and a password manager.
• Turn on multifactor authentication.
• Recognize and report scams.
• Keep your software updated.

Those may sound like small things, but that is exactly the point.

Cybersecurity often comes down to consistent habits. Using unique passwords instead of repeating the same one. Taking an extra moment before clicking a link. Installing updates instead of putting them off. Adding an extra verification step to an important account.

For REALTORS, those habits protect more than a computer or phone. They can help protect client information, transactions, professional reputations, and the trust that is so essential to our business throughout Eastern Middle Tennessee and beyond.

Our national Association, NAR, also encourages REALTORS to use secure transaction-management platforms or secure email when exchanging sensitive information and to avoid sending financial information through ordinary email. That’s always a smart move.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a good reminder that online safety doesn’t have to be complicated.

Here’s an idea to get you off and running: Start with one improvement. Change an old password. Turn on multifactor authentication. Install the update you’ve been postponing.

Then keep going.

At EMTAR, we’re proud to provide resources and information that help our more than 1,200 REALTOR members stay informed and prepared.

Helping you protect your business and better serve your clients is one more way EMTAR works to be your partner in success.

About EMTAR: Chartered in 1969, our Association’s 1,200+ REALTORS are a proud part of the 36,000+ members of Tennessee REALTORS and of the 1.5 million+ members of NAR, all working to serve the public and protect the rights of America’s property owners. EMTAR members are known not only for their unmatched real estate excellence and high ethical standards, but also for being generous, hospitable, others-focused, loyal, hardworking, and eager to help wherever and whenever help is needed.