Karen Armstrong “sits” three seats to my left on the team roster. She has worked as an Atlanta Realtor for 20 years and has sold over 1,200 homes in the Atlanta Metro Area. As a Realtor, Karen has committed to uphold the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) code of ethics and maintain a high level of integrity when representing clients. The NAR strongly supports efforts to protect consumers' sensitive personal information.

The REALTOR® code of Ethics and Standards of Practice explicitly acknowledge a REALTOR's® obligation to preserve the confidentiality of personal information provided by clients in the course of any agency or non-agency relationship—both during and after the termination of these business relationships. 

A Joint 7-Minute presentation between Karen and me would focus on the “Cybersecurity Best Practices for Realtors.” The presentation would provide an opportunity to demonstrate how Karen protects customer data while providing me an opportunity to teach everyone at the table about essential security practices that protect the data of their customers.

Key points of interest could include the following topics:

• Email and Password Hygiene
  • What does Karen do to communicate securely and protect information sent via email? 
  • How should businesses configure these solutions in their organizations?
    
    
• Data encryption and sanitization
  • How does Karen encrypt sensitive information, and how does she ensure files are deleted when they are no longer required?
  • How should businesses configure encryption? What are the best practices for media sanitization?
    
    
• Software patching and updates
  
  • How does Karen keep her business systems patched and up-to-date?
  • How can businesses develop a process to automate system patching and updates to reduce cybersecurity risk?
    
    
• Breach response and notification
  • What processes does Karen have in place to ensure customers are notified if there is a problem?
  • What are the legal obligations of businesses based on the volume of data and the primary residence of the data subject?

Any handout that Karen and I create would be valuable to educate consumers and demonstrate that Karen follows the best practices of her profession to keep customer data safe and secure.