Kimberly Brandon-Wintermote

The Northwest Wyoming Board of Realtors recently won a cybersecurity award. On Oct. 3 at the Cyber Cheyenne conference at Laramie County Community College, Northwest Wyoming Board of REALTORS®(NWBOR), a regional realty board serving Park, Big Horn, and Washakie counties, won the No IT Help category in Wyoming’s 2025 Cybersecurity Competition for Small Businesses.

NWBOR cut cyber risks by 80% in CyberWyoming’s Made Safe in Wyoming seven-month on-the-job cyber training program designed for microbusinesses, according to a release.

Microbusinesses are defined as those with less than 10 computers, no server, no IT professional on staff, and operations systems primarily in cloud portals like Google, Microsoft, and QuickBooks. NWBOR fits this description with one employee, one computer, no technology help, and everything stored in cloud systems.

“At the start of this program, I’ll admit I panicked. Every Realtor board in the country under NAR was suddenly expected to develop a cybersecurity plan, and I started building one that looked like it belonged at a Fortune 500 company instead of a one-person office. Thankfully, CyberWyoming and our statewide cohort helped turn that panic into a plan that actually works — something practical, affordable, and real,” said Kimberly Brandon-Wintermote, CEO of NWBOR.

Between January and August, all of Wyoming’s realty boards participated in the program through a real estate cohort initiated by Wyoming Realtors. NWBOR started with the lowest cyber risk score in the cohort at 7.39% but was still able to reduce it to 1.47%.

“Kimberly was an absolute superstar in the program! She finished in record time, dove deep into her own research, and never missed an assignment. Her drive and curiosity quickly made her a mentor for others in the realty board cohort — it was amazing to watch,” said Laura Baker, executive director of CyberWyoming, mentor to NWBOR, and manager of the Made Safe business training program.

Through the program, Brandon-Wintermote set her cybersecurity goals, learned to do an organization self-assessment, worked the gap between the current situation and her goals, wrote her cybersecurity policies and incident response playbook, and was rewarded with the 80% decrease in risk from beginning to end.

“We needed a plan that not only satisfied NAR’s requirements but was also realistic and sustainable for a one-staff office to maintain. Thanks to the guidance of Laura Baker and her team at CyberWyoming, along with the support of fellow association executives across the state, we now have a policy that is both practical and robust. This recognition affirms the importance of securing member data and business continuity while proving that even small organizations can lead the way in cybersecurity,” said Brandon-Wintermote.

“I am so proud of NWBOR,” said Baker, “Kimberly really showed leadership both for NWBOR and the rest of the realty board cohort. I look forward to seeing her continued security journey.”

For more information about the 2025 Wyoming Cybersecurity Competition for Small Businesses or to register for the 2026 competition visit cyberwyoming.org/competition.