{"id":1004817113,"date":"2026-10-29T12:01:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T20:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004817113"},"modified":"2026-10-29T12:01:43","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T20:01:43","slug":"is-your-data-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/is-your-data-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Data Safe?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Suzann
Suzann Silverman, editorial director<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The doorbell rings. I look outside and see a little witch at the door. A ghost. And a miniature dinosaur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrick or treat!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How cute, I think, as I prepare to greet them, a bowl of candy in my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I pause. Is it really safe to open the door? How do I know they\u2019re not three zombies in disguise, ready to steal all the data off my laptop?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OK, I\u2019m getting paranoid. Clearly, I\u2019ve been watching too many cybersecurity training videos. But it\u2019s not always easy to differentiate between what\u2019s safe to trust and what could be a data breach in disguise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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READ THE MAGAZINE<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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And distinguishing between the two is only likely to become harder as advances in AI clear up a lot of the phishing clues we\u2019ve been taught to spot, like grammatical errors, misspelled company names and oddly structured email addresses. Even more concerning is that information thieves can use AI to clone a manager\u2019s voice providing clearance to release protected data or to create a convincing written message in the tone of that manager\u2019s publicly available writing samples or social media posts, as Jeffrey Steele warns in this month\u2019s feature on cybersecurity, \u201cHow Vulnerable Is Your Portfolio to Cyberthreats<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI is putting corporate data at risk in a lot of other ways, too\u2014from exploiting employee carelessness to targeting outdated software\u2014and commercial real estate companies are particularly vulnerable given the significant quantities of sensitive data stored and capital involved in transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not just the big and better-known companies that are at risk. In fact, smaller and midsize firms have become more susceptible as the rate of cyberattacks increases, cybersecurity expert Daniel Dobrygowski noted in a recent Harvard Business Review <\/em>article<\/a>. Yet their security budgets are generally more limited, making it harder for them to combat the high costs of a breach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re defenseless, however. Dobrygowski points to a variety of less costly ways to combat data risks, including some basic steps like taking greater advantage of underutilized aspects of existing software and cleaning up records and programs that are no longer needed. There are also some key questions worth asking vendors to ensure they\u2019re taking appropriate steps to increase security, Steele notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, it\u2019s important to remember that while AI has made it more challenging to guard against cyber risk, it\u2019s not the only source of vulnerability. Ensuring data security requires a constant and varied vigilance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So go ahead and open the door for trick-or-treaters. But make sure they can\u2019t help themselves to sensitive information along with the candy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read the November 2026 issue of CPE.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The good guys are not the only ones making use of AI. Take steps to protect your company from cybercrime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":755,"featured_media":1004810863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52688,1521,21788,21787],"tags":[53035],"class_list":["post-1004817113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-digital","category-editors-notes","category-technology","tag-harvard-business-review"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs Your Data Safe? - Commercial Property Executive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/is-your-data-safe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Your Data Safe?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The good guys are not the only ones making use of AI. 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