Real estate agents as well as agencies have been outsourcing virtual assistant jobs prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the pandemic, it become more like a necessity and widely accepted business tactic. Since virtual assistants can work remotely, real estate agents and agencies prefer working with them as it removes geographical restrictions and they can hire people from all around the world which has many benefits. However, along with the benefits, there are also certain risks associated with it and data breach is one of them.

Before we begin with the measures to ensure data protection, let’s first have a look at what causes them so that we can have a better understanding of the measures.

What Leads to Breach of Data?

1. Human mistakes

Just as with any other job or any other person, real estate virtual assistants are not mistake-proof. They could make errors during various stages of their job such as data transfer and data entry, or they could make mistakes due to some carelessness every now and then. A data breach can mainly occur when VAs:

1. Use weak passwords.

2. Fall for a phishing scam.

3. Send confidential and sensitive information to someone that shouldn’t receive them.

4. Share their account details with others or login credentials.

5. Not storing important files in a secure manner.

2. Virus attacks, ransomware, and malware

Malware is software that is particularly made to access your computer program without authorization and disrupt or harm the files and other programs, much like a virus does. It can target the company's systems and result in a data breach that affects not only your privacy but also your business and its data. 

Hackers are also becoming increasingly skilled at changing malware programs so that antivirus software cannot identify them. On the other hand, ransomware will prevent you from accessing your computer or any particular files it targets. Regardless, all these things are very sneaky and the VA working with you might be just another victim. 

3. Insider threats

Although threats from an insider member (in this case, the VA) and human error may be closely related, it is more malevolent. While insider misuse or malevolent intent are planned abuses of your and your agency’s system for personal gain, human error is regarded as an innocent mistake. Typically, you authorize the real estate VA to access your real estate files, programs, information, and database in general but they may misuse this authority. Unfortunately, it can be very challenging to identify if your VA is an insider abuser.

Protecting Data When Working with Virtual Assistants

You may have to face consequences of varying degrees because of any kind of data breach. It’s always better to be cautious than regret not being prepared. So, the very first thing to do when you want to outsource real estate virtual assistant jobs is to choose the right outsourcing agency. 

At GoCode Solutions, we help real estate agents and agencies connect with virtual assistants of all types of talents for their needs while ensuring data protection is our topmost priority. We have a data protection system in place to match the industry standards and can make necessary changes to match your needs. Some of the best practices that we follow at GoCode Solutions are as follows:

1. Establish a data breach protocol.

Sensitive information is vital to the work of a virtual assistant, so it is crucial to protect this information at all times. Data breaches are never expected or welcomed at GoCode Solutions. We have our VAs acquainted with different types of data breaches and how they can happen before they start any kind of formal training. We conduct information sessions where we explain the data breach protocol mentioned in their contract and highlight the steps they need to take in case it happens. The first step the VA needs to do is to stop it by getting in touch with their supervisor, who then informs the concerned parties and takes necessary actions furthermore.

2. Provide a work PC well equipped with anti-virus software.

We recognize the threats and risks of viruses, malicious and malware software as they are already highlighted above. To prevent any danger, we provide our VAs with laptops specifically for work that have up-to-date antivirus and malware protection software pre-installed. As we mentioned earlier, data protection is our topmost priority and we do leave any preventive measure up to our VAs. Similarly, they also cannot use the laptop for personal work to ensure that they do not access any website or download any software that could track our data. Moreover, limiting the exchange of information or data to only work-related people guarantees no leaks or unwanted exposure.

3. Use password managers to save and secure login credentials

Everybody tries to use passwords that are easily memorable. Although many websites make it mandatory to use a combination of different characters, numbers, etc. we tend to keep them simple for the sake of convenience and sometimes, to avoid complications. However, such passwords may be easily decodable if they contain birthdates or anniversary dates, someone’s name, or other personal details in them. Similarly, another common practice is also saving passwords in browsers. A VA might do the same. Browsers these days also have strong security to protect those passwords, but hackers may eventually find ways to crack into them through browser extensions or track them using cookies. 

Hence, we make it mandatory for our VAs (and everyone in the company) to use password managers. Such password managers have an extra layer of security with encryption and decryption processes. Therefore, VAs can freely store passwords without worrying about security or having to memorize them.

 4. Use 2 Factor Authentication

Just like a password manager, a 2-factor authentication is another layer of security for logging into an account/profile. It prevents unauthorized access by requiring to feed a security code that is sent to the user’s phone via SMS, email, or an authentication app. The code is valid for a very short time and if not used in that period, it becomes useless and login will be blocked. We have our VAs set this up at the same time when they set up password managers so that they are in full control of their login permissions.