Family office security refers to the set of digital safeguards that protect your identities, data, and financial workflows from errors, fraud, and cyberattacks. It is not only an IT problem. It is also a process problem, because most incidents start with email, shared documents, vendor access, or a rushed payment request.
Single family offices and multi family offices face the same core challenge. They handle highly sensitive information with lean teams and lots of trusted third parties. That combination creates risk if access, approvals, and reporting live in scattered tools.
This guide explains the common attack paths, the controls that matter first, and a practical way to roll improvements out without slowing daily work.
Key takeaways
- Most family office cyber incidents start with people and process, not “hacking.” If you tighten email, access, and approvals, you remove the easiest attack paths.
- Vendor access is a hidden risk. The safest office is the one that can answer, at any moment, who has access to what and why.
- Money movement needs its own controls. Dual approvals and callback verification stop many fraud attempts, even when someone clicks the wrong link.
- A simple incident plan beats a perfect one. If your team can run a first two hours checklist and a first 24 hours checklist, you are ahead of most offices.
What is family office security
Family office security, in a digital sense, means protecting three things.
First, you protect identities such as email accounts, bank portals, and administrator logins.
Second, you protect sensitive data such as statements, tax documents, legal files, and investor reports.
Third, you protect workflows such as payments, approvals, reporting, and vendor access.
A strong program makes the safe path the easy path for the team.
Why cybersecurity is harder in family offices
Family offices are different from typical businesses in a few practical ways.
They often run with small teams and high trust. That can lead to shared folders, informal approvals, and shortcuts that attackers love.
They manage high-value targets. That increases the payoff for criminals, even if your office is not “famous.”
They rely on many external parties. Custodians, accountants, IT providers, legal teams, property managers, and fund administrators all touch your information.
They operate across multiple entities. Trusts, LLCs, holding companies, and foundations create more accounts, more documents, and more access decisions.
If you want simple controls that fit this reality, you need to focus on identity, access, and workflow design.
The most common attack paths
Email compromise and impersonation
This is the most common starting point for fraud.
An attacker tries to get access to an email inbox or impersonate someone who has authority. Then they push urgency: “send this today,” “use this new bank account,” “do not loop anyone else in.”
What to implement first is multi-factor authentication on email, strong password policies, and a hard rule that financial requests never get approved only by email.
Vendor and third-party access
Vendors often have broad access for convenience.
They may have shared credentials, long-lived access, or permissions that no one reviews. Offboarding can also be missed when a vendor changes staff.
What to implement first is an access inventory and a quarterly access review. You want to know exactly which vendors have access to which systems, and you want that list to stay current.
Ransomware and destructive malware
Ransomware is less about “if we get infected” and more about “how quickly we can recover.”
Even strong offices can get hit through a vendor, a vulnerable device, or an employee mistake. The difference is whether you can restore systems and continue operating.
What to implement first is tested backups and a recovery plan that is realistic for your team.
Credential theft and weak authentication
Password reuse and missing multi-factor authentication are still common.
If one credential leaks, attackers try it everywhere: email, document storage, bank portals, and vendor tools.
What to implement first is a password manager, multi-factor authentication on critical systems, and removing shared accounts.
Data leakage through documents
Family offices exchange a lot of PDFs and spreadsheets.
Statements, tax files, deal docs, cap tables, insurance schedules, and K 1s often move through email threads. That creates risk through forwarding, wrong recipients, and uncontrolled downloads.
What to implement first is secure sharing with access controls and expiration, plus clear rules for what can and cannot be emailed.
A practical control framework that fits lean teams
You do not need a complex program to reduce most risk. You need clear basics, and you need them to stick.
Here is a simple framework you can use to prioritize.
| Risk area | What to implement first | What maturity looks like |
| Identity and access | Multi-factor authentication everywhere, password manager, remove shared logins | Role-based access, quarterly access reviews, strong offboarding process |
| Email security | MFA on email, phishing training, block obvious risky attachments | DMARC and email authentication policies, better filtering, consistent reporting of suspicious messages |
| Devices and endpoints | Device encryption, patching baseline, screen lock rules | Managed device policies, endpoint detection tooling, inventory of all devices |
| Data handling | Secure document sharing rules, “what stays private” categories | Data classification, retention rules, access logs reviewed, reduced email attachment dependency |
| Backups and recovery | Backups for critical systems, test restores | Offline or immutable backups, recovery time targets, documented recovery procedures |
| Vendor access | Vendor list, access inventory, minimum security requirements | Contract clauses, periodic vendor reviews, least privilege access for vendors |
| Monitoring and escalation | Who gets alerts, where to report incidents | Central logging, clear severity levels, incident runbooks, quarterly tabletop exercises |
This table should guide the rest of your decisions.
Securing the money movement workflow
If you do only one thing this quarter, make payments harder to fake.
Most high-impact fraud events involve money movement: wires, ACH changes, new beneficiaries, or invoice redirection.
Start with controls that are simple and enforceable.
Core controls for payments
- Dual approvals for any payment above a threshold you define.
- Callback verification for any new beneficiary or changed wiring instructions.
- No payment approvals via email alone, even if the email appears to come from a principal.
- Separation of duties where possible, so the person who requests is not the person who releases.
- A written “stop and escalate” rule for urgency language, secrecy requests, or pressure.
Why reconciliation is a security control
Reconciliation is not only accounting. It is also a detection.
When you reconcile cash movements and accounts consistently, you catch anomalies faster. An unexpected outgoing transfer becomes visible when it is still actionable, not weeks later.
If you keep accounting and entity reporting in a controlled system with role-based access and an audit trail, such as FundCount, you reduce reliance on emailed spreadsheets and one-off manual updates. That matters because many fraud and error events become harder to unwind when the only “record” is a file that can be edited without a trace.
Vendor security and third-party controls
Most family offices cannot run cybersecurity alone. Vendors are necessary.
The goal is not to eliminate vendor access. The goal is to make it controlled, visible, and revocable.
Vendor minimum requirements checklist
Use this as a baseline when you onboard or renew a vendor relationship.
- Multi-factor authentication is required for any access to your systems or documents.
- Vendor access is role-based, not shared. Each person has their own account.
- The vendor can explain how data is encrypted in transit and at rest.
- The vendor can provide a clear incident notification timeline.
- The vendor can confirm how subcontractors are used and who can access data.
- The vendor agrees to least privilege access and time-bound access when possible.
- The vendor agrees to immediate offboarding when a team member leaves.
- The vendor has a documented process for patching and vulnerability management.
- The vendor can provide evidence of security testing or audits, if available.
Quarterly access review checklist
Do this four times a year.
- List all vendors with access to email, documents, accounting, and bank portals.
- Confirm who at each vendor has access today.
- Remove access that is no longer needed.
- Confirm the vendor’s security point of contact and escalation path.
- Confirm where vendor’s work product is stored and who owns it.
Incident response plan and tabletop exercises
You do not need a long incident plan. You need a usable plan.
What a one-page incident plan should include
- Who is the incident lead
- Who can approve account lock-downs and vendor access removal
- Who contacts legal, insurance, and forensic support if needed
- What systems are most critical to restore
- Where you store contact lists and credentials during an incident
First 2 hours checklist
- Confirm what happened and what is still happening.
- Contain the incident. Lock accounts, disable access, isolate devices if needed.
- Preserve evidence. Do not delete emails or logs in a rush.
- Notify the core team and assign roles.
- Decide whether the event is financial, data exposure, or operational disruption, or a mix.
First 24 hours checklist
- Build a timeline of events and actions taken.
- Identify impacted systems and impacted data.
- Contact external support if appropriate: forensics, legal, insurer, bank fraud team.
- Communicate internally with clear, simple instructions to staff.
- Start recovery steps, including restoring from backups if needed.
- Document decisions and keep all incident notes in one place.
Tabletop exercises
Run one tabletop exercise each quarter.
Pick a scenario your office could realistically face, like a vendor breach or an email compromise. Spend 45 minutes walking through the first two hours checklist.
At the end, write down what was unclear, what data you could not access quickly, and what permissions were missing.
Family office cybersecurity checklist
Use these as a practical self-assessment. Keep it honest.
Quick start checklist for a 5 to 15-person office
- MFA is enabled on email, bank portals, and document storage.
- Every user has their own account. Shared logins are removed.
- A password manager is required for the team.
- Devices that access sensitive data are encrypted.
- Payment approvals require two people above a threshold.
- Callback verification is mandatory for new beneficiaries or wiring changes.
- Sensitive documents are shared through controlled links, not email attachments.
- Vendor access is inventoried and reviewed quarterly.
- Backups exist and at least one restore test has been run.
- The office has a one-page incident plan and knows where it lives.
Next-level checklist for offices with dedicated IT support
- Email authentication policies are configured and monitored.
- Endpoint monitoring is in place for managed devices.
- Central logging exists for key systems, and alerts go to the real owner.
- A data classification and retention approach exists for high sensitivity documents.
- Vendor contracts include incident notification and access requirements.
- Regular vulnerability scans and annual testing are performed.
- A quarterly tabletop exercise is on the calendar.
- A clear onboarding and offboarding checklist exists for staff and vendors.
A 30, 60, 90-day implementation plan
If you want momentum without chaos, use this rollout plan.
Days 1 to 30
- Turn on MFA everywhere.
- Deploy a password manager and remove shared accounts.
- Put dual approval and callback verification rules in place for payments.
- Create an access inventory for staff and vendors.
Days 31 to 60
- Standardize secure document sharing and reduce email attachments.
- Encrypt and patch devices that access sensitive data.
- Review vendor access and remove unnecessary permissions.
- Confirm backups exist for the systems that matter most.
Days 61 to 90
- Write the one-page incident plan and store it securely.
- Test a restore from backups.
- Set up alert ownership and escalation paths.
- Run the first tabletop exercise and record improvements.
Common pitfalls
Relying on trust instead of controls
Trust is good. Controls make trust scalable.
Buying tools without changing workflows
If the workflow still allows approvals by email, the tool will not fix the risk.
Letting vendors keep permanent access
Access should be earned, limited, and reviewed. Permanent access becomes invisible access.
Treating reconciliation and audit trail as optional
When numbers and approvals cannot be traced, errors and fraud take longer to detect and longer to resolve.
Family office security FAQ
What is family office security?
Family office security is the set of digital controls that protect identities, sensitive data, and financial workflows. It includes access control, secure sharing, vendor management, and incident readiness.
What controls matter most first?
Start with MFA, strong passwords, and payment verification controls. These steps reduce the most common attack paths without requiring a large IT team.
How do we reduce wire fraud risk?
Use dual approvals above a threshold and callback verification for any new beneficiary or wiring change. Do not approve payments by email alone.
How do we manage vendor access safely?
Keep an inventory of vendor access, enforce MFA, and review permissions quarterly. Remove access quickly when vendor staff changes.
What should be in an incident plan?
A clear incident owner, a containment checklist, a contact list for external support, and steps for the first two hours and first 24 hours. It should be short enough to use under pressure.
Conclusion
Family office security is not about building an enterprise security department. It is about protecting the real weak points: identity, access, vendors, documents, and money movement.
If you make safe workflows the default, train the team, and practice a simple incident plan, you reduce risk without slowing down operations. Most improvements are basic, but basic ones done consistently are what prevent costly incidents.
If you want, I can also adapt the checklists into two versions, one for a single family office and one for a multi family office, since the vendor and client data risks tend to differ.
