Overview

EQUITYMULTIPLE is a cloud application platform used by individuals and organizations of all sizes to participate in real estate transactions. Our platform allows users to safely and securely invest in real estate while the EQUITYMULTIPLE technology stack focuses on data storage, workflow, scaling, integration, and security. EQUITYMULTIPLE applies security best practices and manages platform security so users can focus on their business. Our platform inherently protects users from threats by applying security controls at every layer from physical to application, isolating data, and all with the ability to rapidly deploy security updates without service interruption.

Commitment to Trust

Trust is a core principle of EQUITYMULTIPLE. It’s this commitment to user privacy and inspiring trust that directs the decisions we make on a daily basis. Trust is the responsibility of each and every employee and one we take seriously.

Security Assessment

Data Centers

EQUITYMULTIPLE’s physical infrastructure is hosted and managed as a Heroku application within Amazon’s secure data centers and utilize the Amazon Web Service (AWS) technology. Amazon continually manages risk and undergoes recurring assessments to ensure compliance with industry standards. Amazon’s data center operations have been accredited under:

• ISO 27001
• SOC 1 and SOC 2/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 (Previously SAS 70 Type II)
• PCI Level 1
• FISMA Moderate
• Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)

Penetration Testing & Vulnerability Assessment

Third party security testing of the EQUITYMULTIPLE application is performed by independent and reputable security consulting firms. Findings from each assessment are reviewed with the assessors, risk ranked, and assigned to the responsible team.

Physical Security

EQUITYMULTIPLE utilizes ISO 27001 and FISMA certified data centers managed by Amazon. Amazon has many years of experience in designing, constructing, and operating large-scale data centers. This experience has been applied to the AWS platform and infrastructure. AWS data centers are housed in nondescript facilities, and critical facilities have extensive setback and military grade perimeter control berms as well as other natural boundary protection. Physical access is strictly controlled both at the perimeter and at building ingress points by professional security staff utilizing video surveillance, state of the art intrusion detection systems, and other electronic means. Authorized staff must pass two-factor authentication no fewer than three times to access data center floors. All visitors and contractors are required to present identification and are signed in and continually escorted by authorized staff.

Amazon only provides data center access and information to employees who have a legitimate business need for such privileges. When an employee no longer has a business need for these privileges, his or her access is immediately revoked, even if they continue to be an employee of Amazon or Amazon Web Services. All physical and electronic access to data centers by Amazon employees is logged and audited routinely.

For additional information see: https://aws.amazon.com/security

Environmental Safeguards

Fire Detection and Suppression

Automatic fire detection and suppression equipment has been installed to reduce risk. The fire detection system utilizes smoke detection sensors in all data center environments, mechanical and electrical infrastructure spaces, chiller rooms and generator equipment rooms. These areas are protected by either wet-pipe, double-interlocked pre-action, or gaseous sprinkler systems.

Power

The data center electrical power systems are designed to be fully redundant and maintainable without impact to operations, 24 hours a day, and seven days a week. Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) units provide back-up power in the event of an electrical failure for critical and essential loads in the facility. Data centers use generators to provide backup power for the entire facility.

Climate and Temperature Control

Climate control is required to maintain a constant operating temperature for servers and other hardware, which prevents overheating and reduces the possibility of service outages. Data centers are conditioned to maintain atmospheric conditions at optimal levels. Monitoring systems and data center personnel ensure temperature and humidity are at the appropriate levels.

Management

Data center staff monitor electrical, mechanical and life support systems and equipment so issues are immediately identified. Preventative maintenance is performed to maintain the continued operability of equipment.

For additional information see: https://aws.amazon.com/security

Network Security

Firewalls

Firewalls are utilized to restrict access to systems from external networks and between systems internally. By default all access is denied and only explicitly allowed ports and protocols are allowed based on business need. Each system is assigned to a firewall security group based on the system’s function. Security groups restrict access to only the ports and protocols required for a system’s specific function to mitigate risk.
Host-based firewalls restrict user applications from establishing localhost connections over the loopback network interface to further isolate user applications. Host-based firewalls also provide the ability to further limit inbound and outbound connections as needed.

DDoS Mitigation

Our infrastructure provides DDoS mitigation techniques including TCP Syn cookies and connection rate limiting in addition to maintaining multiple backbone connections and internal bandwidth capacity that exceeds the Internet carrier supplied bandwidth. We work closely with our providers to quickly respond to events and enable advanced DDoS mitigation controls when needed.
Spoofing and Sniffing Protections

Managed firewalls prevent IP, MAC, and ARP spoofing on the network and between virtual hosts to ensure spoofing is not possible. Packet sniffing is prevented by infrastructure including the hypervisor which will not deliver traffic to an interface which it is not addressed to. EQUITYMULTIPLE utilizes application isolation, operating system restrictions, and encrypted connections to further ensure risk is mitigated at all levels.

Port Scanning

Port scanning is prohibited and every reported instance is investigated by our infrastructure provider. When port scans are detected, they are stopped and access is blocked.

Data Security

Stored data is encrypted by EQUITYMULTIPLE in order to meet data security requirements.

Encrypted Data in Transit

EQUITYMULTIPLE requires browser connections over HTTPS and SSL database connections to protect sensitive data transmitted to and from applications.

Encrypted Data at Rest

All sensitive data is encrypted and stored within databases to meet security requirements. Data encryption is deployed using industry standard encryption and the best practices for our technology stack.

Vulnerability Management

Our vulnerability management process is designed to remediate risks without user interaction or impact. EQUITYMULTIPLE is notified of vulnerabilities through internal and external assessments, system patch monitoring, and third party mailing lists and services. Each vulnerability is reviewed to determine if it is applicable to EQUITYMULTIPLE’s environment, ranked based on risk, and assigned to the appropriate team for resolution.

New systems are deployed with the latest updates, security fixes, and EQUITYMULTIPLE configurations and existing systems are decommissioned as users are migrated to the new instances. This process allows EQUITYMULTIPLE to keep the environment up-to-date. Since user applications run in isolated environments, they are unaffected by these core system updates.
To further mitigate risk, each component type is assigned to a unique network security group. These security groups are designed to only allow access to the ports and protocols required for the specific component type. For example, user applications running within an isolated dyno are denied access to the EQUITYMULTIPLE management infrastructure as each is within its own network security group and access is not allowed between the two.

Application Security

We undergo penetration tests, vulnerability assessments, and source code reviews to assess the security of our application, architecture, and implementation. Our third party security assessments cover all areas of our platform including testing for OWASP Top 10 web application vulnerabilities and user application isolation. EQUITYMULTIPLE works closely with external security assessors to review the security of the EQUITYMULTIPLE platform and applications and apply best practices.

Issues found in EQUITYMULTIPLE applications are risk ranked, prioritized, assigned to the responsible team for remediation, and EQUITYMULTIPLE’s security team reviews each remediation plan to ensure proper resolution.

Backups

From our instance images to our databases, each component is backed up to secure, access-controlled, and redundant storage. The platform allows for recovering databases to within seconds of the last known state, restoring system instances from standard templates, and deploying user data. In addition to standard backup practices, EQUITYMULTIPLE’s infrastructure is designed to scale and be fault tolerant by automatically replacing failed instances and reducing the likelihood of needing to restore from backup.

Deployment Backup

EQUITYMULTIPLE is automatically backed up as part of the deployment process on secure, access controlled, and redundant storage. We use these backups to deploy across our platform and to automatically bring the application back online in the event of an outage.

Databases

Every change to the data is written to write-ahead logs, which are shipped to multi-datacenter, high-durability storage. In the unlikely event of unrecoverable hardware failure, these logs can be automatically ‘replayed’ to recover the database to within seconds of its last known state.

Disaster Recovery

User Information and Databases

The platform automatically restores the EQUITYMULTIPLE application and databases in the case of an outage. The platform is designed to dynamically re-deploy the application(s), monitor for failures, and recover failed platform components including the user application and databases.

The Platform

EQUITYMULTIPLE is designed for stability, scaling, and inherently mitigates common issues that lead to outages while maintaining recovery capabilities. The platform maintains redundancy to prevent single points of failure, is able to replace failed components, and utilizes multiple data centers designed for resiliency. In the case of an outage, the platform is deployed across multiple data centers using current system images and data is restored from backups. EQUITYMULTIPLE reviews platform issues to understand the root cause, impact to users, and improve the platform and processes.

Privacy

EQUITYMULTIPLE has a published privacy policy that clearly defines what data is collected and how it is used. EQUITYMULTIPLE is committed to user privacy and transparency.

We takes steps to protect the privacy of our users and protect data stored within the platform. Some of the protections inherent to EQUITYMULTIPLE’s application include authentication, access controls, data transport encryption, HTTPS support for user applications, and encrypted stored data.

For additional information see: https://www.equitymultiplestaging.com/privacy

Employee Screening and Policies

As a condition of employment all EQUITYMULTIPLE employees undergo pre-employment background checks and agree to company policies including security and acceptable use policies.

Secure Development Practices

EQUITYMULTIPLE applies best practices to mitigate known vulnerability types such as those on the OWASP Top 10 Web Application Security Risks.