WASHINGTON, DC-AIG has put out a new report discussing an emerging risk for building owners and landlords: cyber and data security risks. And while the company does not signal out Washington, DC, in any particular fashion, this is clearly an issue of growing important to local landlords. To state the obvious: a significant portion of the area's office buildings house government operations and defense contractors, all of whom rely on connectivity to handle sensitive and classified information.

DC, of course, is well schooled in protecting its government and government-related tenants from physical risks that might be associated with their work and indeed, the Department of Defense has its own criteria of safety standards that a building must meet.

However building owners are less well versed in what it takes to protect their operations, and conversely, their tenants' from the online channel. This is not to say the commercial real estate community brushes off cyber risks; rather, the sad fact is that hackers and malware writers are so quick and focused on writing ever more creative malware that it is very difficult to stay in front of their misdeeds.

Also, the connectivity of devices – the Internet of Things – is a wide open security gap in many buildings and properties. In short, even IT department do not take into account the possible vulnerabilities that connected devices can present – much less building owners.

While connected devices are still in their nascent stage, they are growing rapidly and increasingly easy to find online. For example, a search engine called Shodan indexes devices that are connected to the Internet, a category that is wide-ranging, including such everyday gadgets as webcams and printers to industrial buildings' security cameras and control systems for nuclear power plants. Many of these devices, as a recent article in CNN pointed out, are unprotected.

Instant Insights /

DC's Special CRE Risk: Online Attacks

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