Digital Progress, Digital Risk: Cybersecurity Challenges Facing Contractors

Matthew Butler: In response to the 2025 Travelers Risk Index, 76% of building leaders now agree that having correct cybersecurity controls in place is crucial to their firm’s well-being, and 75% say cybersecurity is championed by senior administration, up eight factors from 2024. That is indicative of the rising consciousness and maturity throughout the sector. Furthermore, 66% really feel assured their firm has carried out greatest practices to stop or mitigate cyber occasions, a notable enchancment from the prior 12 months.

Contractors are recognizing that their reputations and operations rely on digital reliability. Stories of ransomware and vendor breaches within the trade have additional motivated firms to be proactive and put money into stronger controls and cyber insurance coverage.

CONTRACTOR: The large matter in building tech today is the “tech stack” —getting the suitable software program elements all working collectively at most effectivity. Are there inherent safety vulnerabilities in adopting a haphazard or patchwork set of options?

Butler: So many software program firms attempt to promote a stack of expertise to suit everybody’s wants. Sadly, this isn’t at all times essentially the most cost-effective methodology of securing a company and a few applied sciences inherently don’t work with others. When firms mix incompatible or poorly built-in options, they expose themselves to important cybersecurity dangers.

A fragmented system will increase the chance of misconfigurations, inconsistent patching and consumer entry points—all of which create vulnerabilities. The 2025 Vacationers Threat Index revealed that roughly 30% of building corporations face heightened publicity to danger on account of outdated software program.

Poorly built-in techniques additionally require broader IT experience that may improve prices and result in technical oversights. For instance, utilizing each Mac and Home windows techniques with out ample experience and assist for each techniques may end up in unexpected and unrealized vulnerabilities.

CONTRACTOR: A large number of building firms are depending on legacy techniques. Do these techniques current their very own units of vulnerabilities, and in that case, how can they greatest be addressed?

Butler: Legacy techniques pose a serious danger for building firms. Many depend on outdated venture administration or management techniques which will not obtain safety updates or vendor assist, leaving organizations uncovered.

This can be a widespread situation throughout the trade. As famous above, roughly 30% of building corporations are utilizing out-of-date software program, and solely 35% are utilizing endpoint detection and response, a necessary instrument for safeguarding legacy and present techniques alike.

For example, we’ve seen firms nonetheless working firewalls or community gadgets from defunct distributors. One firm was utilizing a firewall from a company that went out of enterprise in 2018. Evidently, that left the corporate’s community ready to be compromised.

To handle these dangers, corporations ought to section out unsupported applied sciences, phase legacy techniques from crucial networks and guarantee strong compensating controls like multifactor authentication, monitoring and frequent information backups.