People need to look at the nature of a building, who the tenants are and who the owners are because all of that will impact the willingness of someone to introduce a cyber threat. They can steal money or secrets and black mail tenants or building management.

In commercial property management, the cyber attackers can go to very important services and potentially shut them down or disable them. For example, they can tamper with the HVAC system.

Also, vulnerabilities exist not only with the building owner but with contractors and vendors that have occupiers' and owners' data.

GlobeSt.com: What should industry firms be doing to safeguard against cyber attacks?

Kelly: About 80% of intrusions are believed to be caused by employee carelessness. If you leave doors open to negligence, people are going to walk through those doors. So you need training of employees and then you need monitoring of whether employees are adhering to security policy.

If not, there should be some penalty with bite to it, whether that means getting a letter saying an employee has to shape up or a cut in someone's bonus.

GlobeSt.com: In a recent speech, you said companies should deploy "multi-disciplined teams in place that can respond to a variety of different security events, be it online or at physical locations." Could you elaborate on what disciplines should be involved?

Kelly: A response team should include professionals in IT, public relations— because there needs to be an awareness of an attack and its impact on an organization's reputation—and attorneys. There also should be a security component.

And it's important to have someone at a high level, from the C-suite, that leads the committee because there has to be someone involved who has the clout to do things and do them quickly. It's an issue to get the attention of a CEO of any company. You have to have that access.

GlobeSt.com: What do you see ahead for the CRE industry on the cyber front?

Kelly: The industry has gotten the message. The big companies are striving to address the issue and stress to occupiers that security efforts are underway. I saw much more awareness of this issue at the end of my tenure at Cushman & Wakefield than at the beginning.