Enhancing Cybersecurity Resilience in the Real Estate Industry: Mitigating Phishing and BEC Attacks

Abstract

As real estate transactions continue to shift toward fully digital workflows, the sector has become an attractive target for phishing and BEC attacks that exploit trust, time pressure, and fragmented communication channels. This paper contributes to cybersecurity research by moving beyond high level discussions of email fraud and focusing directly on the real estate industry as a primary domain of analysis rather than a peripheral use case. The study synthesizes existing academic and industry literature with a structured examination of multiple real-world incidents drawn from residential, commercial, and cross border property transactions. By analysing these cases collectively, the paper identifies recurring patterns in attacker techniques, Organizational weaknesses, and decision-making failures that enable financial loss. Attention is paid to how human behavior, process design, and informal verification practices interact with technical shortcomings to create exploitable conditions. A clearly defined methodology outlines the case selection criteria, temporal scope, and analytic approach, allowing the study to be replicated or extended by future researchers. This methodological transparency strengthens the academic value of the work while grounding the findings in observable evidence rather than assumptions. Based on the cross-case analysis, the paper proposes a practical, sector specific framework that aligns cybersecurity controls with the operational realities of property transactions, including third party coordination, legal timelines, and high value fund transfers. The findings offer practical relevance for cybersecurity professionals, real estate practitioners, and policymakers by translating incident analysis into concrete risk reduction strategies. At the same time, the paper advances scholarly understanding by presenting an industry focused model for addressing cyber enabled financial crime in trust-based transaction environments.