Cybersecurity 101 for Architecture Firms

Imagine it’s a typical mid-week morning and you have spent countless hours burning the midnight oil the past three weeks to finalize a set of drawings for a highly valued customer.

Your boss is patiently waiting to review the project to present to the client this Friday. For ease of edits, you have stored the entire project on your laptop hard drive. In between your final review and revisions, you receive an email titled “office humor” from a business colleague. Upon opening the email, your computer screen suddenly goes black and a message appears “Your computer has been infected, click here to fix.” Without hesitation, you click the button. You try to open your project files but your computer does not recognize them. Fear sets in. It will take weeks to rework.

Later that afternoon, the IT Tech comes strolling in, careless and free, as he says “Hey dude, what did you do to your laptop?” You are frantic at this point, “listen, I… I…, I opened an email and…” The technician interrupts “oh, man, looks like your computer has a virus. It may be a while. I will need to run a few scans on the system.” Several hours later the computer is still unusable, you have nearly wasted a full day of productivity, and your boss is requesting the project for review.

News of data breaches are becoming increasingly common and IT security threats become more and more prominent every day. It is crucial for architecture firms of all sizes to protect themselves from cyberattacks that could potentially compromise sensitive data, resulting in lost time and work that leads to lost revenue and irrevocable damage to a firm’s reputation.

Join Ann Masland (Comcast Business) and Alan Estes (GDC It Solutions) on Thursday, May 4th from 11:30 am – 1:00 pm at AIA Pennsylvania headquarters for this lunch and learn or via online webinar broadcast.  

Participants will be versed in the basics of cybersecurity as listed below:

• Differences between internet security and internet safety
• Email transmission and its vulnerabilities
• Recognize phishing attempts
• Prevent identity theft

Register here to attend the Lunch and Learn at AIA Central Pennsylvania/AIA PA headquarters or register for the online webinar here.