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Cloud Backup for Real Estate Companies

Preserve, protect and restore real estate data.

Cloud backup for Real Estate companies

Cloud backup and archiving for real estate agencies, brokers, escrow firms, inspectors and other real estate-related services is a necessary part of good practices
for protecting valuable data — for ecosystems such as Office 365 and G Suite— while complying with FTC and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act regulations.

Real estate companies and those that support them are required to obtain, hold and share highly sensitive personal and financial information. Because of this, regulations for real estate firms require two broad data protection and security measures:

Data Protection and Security
Data Disposal

The intent of the regulations is to prevent unauthorized access or use of customer data, to protect and keep data secure, and to ensure that data is safely disposed of when it’s no longer needed.

 

Real Estate Data Protection and Security

Real estate data protection and security includes five key principles, as recommended by the Federal Trade Commission:

  1. TAKE STOCK – Know what personal data you have in your files and computers
  2. SCALE DOWN – Keep only what you need for your business
  3. LOCK IT – Protect the information that you keep
  4. PITCH IT – Properly dispose of what you no longer need
  5. PLAN AHEAD – Create a plan to respond to security incidents

Real estate firms must protect data — such as email, SharePoint and OneDrive data within Office 365 — from loss by implementing several key measures specified in the regulations.

Should data be deleted, corrupted or hacked with encryption, a real estate company could find itself unable to transact business. Having automated daily backups of data ensures that should such a data disaster happen, restoring full and complete copies is just a click away.

Important Real Estate Regulations

Gramm Leach Bliley Act and Real Estate Data

Interestingly, there are aspects of the Gramm Leach Bliley Act that pertain to real estate industry firms. The regulations apply to any firm using, accessing or holding consumer credit information, which can include those firms “providing real estate settlement services.”

Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003

The regulations for proper treatment and disposal of consumer credit information provides details on the ways real estate firms must manage their data:

Electronic Code of Federal Regulations: Title 16 → Chapter I → Subchapter F → Part 682

§682.2 scope
(b) Scope. This rule applies to any person over which the Federal Trade Commission has jurisdiction, that, for a business purpose, maintains or otherwise possesses consumer information.

§682.3 Proper disposal of consumer information
(a) Standard. Any person who maintains or otherwise possesses consumer information for a business purpose must properly dispose of such information by taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to or use of the information in connection with its disposal.

The regulations go on to provide examples of reasonable measures firms should use to properly dispose of both physical and electronic consumer information.

Having the ability to provide an audit trail to verify that reasonable measures were taken to properly dispose of the data is key to ensuring compliance.

Dropsuite provides a comprehensive solution for backing up, archiving, restoring and verifying disposal of stored electronic data. This includes robust searching and reporting tools that can help real estate firms validate they are in compliance with data disposal regulations.

Three Use Cases for Real Estate Data Protection and Disposal

Maintaining proper protection of sensitive consumer information means only providing access to authorized employees when data is needed. Using Dropsuite’s easy to set up user roles, specific employees, administrators or auditors can be granted or denied access depending on their need for sensitive data. In addition, the ability to provide reports and audit trails on what data was accessed and when ensures real estate firms can properly report on data activities internally and to 3rd parties who may require validation of regulations.

Most firms who deal with sensitive consumer credit information, including real estate firms, are required to properly dispose of data to comply with the Gramm Leach Bliley Act and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act. Using Dropsuite’s advanced search tools, it is easy for firms to find specific consumer data that may be under review and report on activities associated with that data. Reports of data access including envelop journaling are available with Dropsuite Backup and Archiving, which enables real estate firms to easily comply with requests to verify that data disposal was properly adhered to.

A critical component of complying with FTC, Gramm Leach Bliley Act and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act for data protection is using maximum-strength encryption both in transit and at rest. Dropsuite provides TLS or SSL secure connections coupled with 256 Bit AES military-grade encryption to protect data at all times, both in transit and at rest. This ensures real estate company data is backed up, preserved and protected should it be needed in the event it is corrupted, encrypted or deleted.

How Dropsuite covers the FTC's five principles of data protection

  1. Taking Stock: First, taking stock and scaling down are both key aspects of backing up data. Dropsuite provides Office 365, G Suite Gmail, Exchange, Open-Xchange and IMAP/POP3 backup, restore and archiving solutions to ensure data is protected, safe and available should a data disaster happen.
  2. Scale Down: Equally importantly, it’s critical to know what data types are filed, where they are, and when it may be time to scale them down (i.e., remove unnecessary data). Advanced search, saved search, alerts and other tools such as those that come with Dropsuite solutions ensure data is accurately tracked, and as necessary scaled down so that only the necessary data for business is available.
  3. Lock It: Locking data is critical to protecting and securing real estate company data. Using cloud-based solutions that are highly secure, with TLS or SSL connections coupled with military-grade encryption using 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) ensures data is safe both in transit and at rest.
  4. Pitch It: Pitching, or more accurately disposing of data applies to electronic as well as paper-based files. Using built-in reporting tools such as Dropsuite’s Insights BI ensures compliance with requirements to destroy data are adhered to and available for verification, should a third party require it.
  5. Plan Ahead: Finally, planning ahead includes having written plans for each type of incident, identifying individuals who can act when incidents happen and providing the tools necessary to take immediate action to recover. Acting on security incidents with advanced recovery tools is made much easier with the single pane of glass dashboard that comes standard with Dropsuite Backup and Archiving solutions

Real Estate Data Backup and Archiving Made Easy

Dropsuite data backup and archiving solutions for real estate companies safeguard, retain and use journal archiving to ensure your sensitive consumer data records are securely stored for as long as you need them. This not only reduces your storage requirements but provides you with an FTC and Gramm Leach Bliley Act compliant SaaS tool to manage your email and related consumer real estate data.

Our solution assures that 100% accessible records are systematically stored in a military-grade secure, central cloud data repository. With state-of-the-art security and legal hold features in place to guard against issues of tampering you can rest assured your real estate company is in compliance with consumer privacy and disposition regulations while maintaining maximum safety and security. Dropsuite Cloud Email Archiving was tailored-made for the rigid regulatory requirements real estate firms must adhere to.

Best-In-Class Data Protection Features for Real Estate

Dropsuite’s elegantly designed, scalable, and comprehensive email backup and archiving solution in the cloud was tailor-made for manufacturing operations — all manageable within a single pane of glass. Manufacturing companies can easily and cost effectively safeguard their email communication records — Office 365, G Suite Gmail or even IMAP/POP email systems.

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Automate Backups

Setting up automated backups for compliance or just to "set and forget" is easy with just a few clicks of a button.
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Insights BI Analytics

Advanced analytics toolkit that enables you to find patterns of usage, identify issues and recommend optimizations.
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Military-Grade Encryption

Dropsuite uses military-grade AES 256-bit encryption and TLS/SSL to ensure your data is protected in transit and at rest.
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Incremental Backups

Our solution finds and backs up only changed files which means your backup time is fast, and your storage is minimized.
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Single Pane of Glass

Our dashboard makes it simple to set-up, administer, manage user access, restore files and much more.
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Granular Restore

We provide granular restore so you can easily find and restore a single email, or a mailbox, or the entire email ecosystem.

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“Dropsuite’s professional-grade Office 365 backup and archiving product is user-friendly, meets rigorous international compliance standards, and is simple to provision.”
Joseph Bouhadana's Dropsuite Testimonial
Joseph Bouhadana
VP of Cloud Services at Intcomex

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