Your Procore instance contains every bid you have submitted, every change order you have approved, every subcontractor payment application, every project schedule, and every piece of correspondence with owners and architects. Your Buildertrend or PlanGrid has daily logs, photos, RFIs, and punch lists. Your accounting integration moves money based on approvals in these systems.

Now ask yourself: how confident are you that only authorized people can access this data? For construction firms in Northern Virginia — many of whom work on government projects, federal facilities, and sensitive commercial developments — the answer is often less confident than they would like to admit.

65%
of construction firms reported a cybersecurity incident in the past 2 years — ENR/FMI Survey

Why Construction PM Software Is a Growing Target

Construction has historically operated under the radar for cybercriminals. That changed as the industry moved from paper blueprints and fax machines to cloud-based project management platforms that hold millions of dollars in transaction data. Here is why attackers are now paying attention:

For construction firms in the Washington DC metro area working on government or government-adjacent projects, there is an additional dimension: project data may include facility layouts, security system specifications, or access control information that has national security implications.

Real-World Example: A Northern Virginia general contractor had their Procore account compromised through a phished superintendent credential. The attacker modified banking details on a subcontractor's payment application before the next pay cycle. $340,000 was wired to a fraudulent account before anyone noticed the change. The sub never got paid, the GC ate the loss, and the project timeline was disrupted by the resulting dispute.

Securing Your PM Platform: Step by Step

Step 1: Eliminate Shared Accounts

This is the single biggest security gap in construction PM software. Shared logins — "the Procore password" that everyone on the team knows — make it impossible to track who accessed what, when, and from where. When something goes wrong, you cannot determine who did it.

Step 2: Enable Multi-Factor Authentication

Every major construction PM platform — Procore, Buildertrend, PlanGrid, CoConstruct, BuilderTREND — supports MFA. Yet adoption among construction users remains far below other industries. The common objection ("field guys will not use it") does not survive scrutiny when you consider what is at stake:

Step 3: Implement Role-Based Permissions

Not everyone needs access to everything. A framing subcontractor does not need to see the electrical bid. A project engineer does not need admin access to modify payment workflows. Set permissions based on the principle of least privilege:

Step 4: Secure Integrations and APIs

PM platforms rarely operate in isolation. They integrate with accounting software (Sage 300, Viewpoint, QuickBooks), document storage (Box, SharePoint), estimating tools, and scheduling platforms. Each integration is a potential attack path:

Accounting Integration Risk: If your Procore integrates with Sage or QuickBooks for automated payment processing, a compromise of the PM system can directly result in fraudulent payments. Ensure that financial integrations have transaction limits, require manual approval above thresholds, and generate alerts for unusual payment patterns.

Step 5: Mobile Device Security for Field Access

Construction is a mobile-first industry. Superintendents, foremen, and project engineers access PM software from tablets and phones on active job sites across the Northern Virginia and DC area. These devices face risks that office computers do not:

Common Mistakes Construction Firms Make

  1. One login for the whole project team — shared credentials mean zero accountability. When the PM password is written on a whiteboard in the trailer, your security is effectively nonexistent.
  2. Never revoking former employee access — that superintendent who left six months ago can still log into Procore and view active project data, including financials.
  3. Subcontractors with admin access — granting broad access "to make it easier" for subs creates exposure well beyond what they need to do their work.
  4. No offboarding process for project completion — when a project closes, all external user access should be revoked. Many firms leave these accounts active indefinitely.
  5. Ignoring the accounting integration — firms secure Procore access but leave the Procore-to-Sage integration with full write access and no monitoring, creating a direct path from a PM compromise to fraudulent payments.

PM Software Security Checklist

Getting Your Firm Started

If your construction firm in Northern Virginia is running Procore, Buildertrend, or another PM platform with default security settings and shared accounts, the path to proper security is straightforward but requires commitment:

  1. This week: Audit your current user list. How many active accounts exist? How many belong to people no longer on your projects? How many are shared?
  2. Next week: Enable MFA for all admin accounts. Then roll it out to all users with a clear deadline.
  3. This month: Implement role-based permissions and revoke access for completed projects and former employees.

For firms working on government projects or handling sensitive commercial data in the DC metro area, a comprehensive security review of your PM environment is worth the investment. The cost of a single payment fraud incident dwarfs the cost of prevention.

Schedule your free construction IT security assessment →