Financial Services
Security your clients and your examiners can both trust
Financial firms get attacked for the most direct reason there is: the money moves through you. We build the controls that stop fraudulent transfers, protect client data, and give you the documentation an examiner or a due-diligence questionnaire will ask for.
The realities
What makes financial firms different
Wire and payment fraud
Business email compromise is the costliest attack in this sector. Someone watches a mailbox quietly, waits for a real transaction, and sends revised instructions that look exactly right.
Examiner and due-diligence expectations
SEC and FINRA expectations, state requirements, and institutional clients all want written policies, access reviews, and an incident response plan. Producing them under a deadline is painful.
Email retention and supervision
Business communications need to be retained and searchable, including on mobile devices. Firms often discover the gap only when someone asks for a specific message from two years ago.
A very small blast radius for mistakes
In a ten-person firm, one compromised account can reach nearly everything. Access controls that assume a large IT department do not fit, but neither does giving everyone access to everything.
IT built for financial firms
Advisory firms, lenders, insurance agencies, and fintech companies sit on exactly what attackers want: account details, identity documents, and the authority to move funds. The most expensive attacks in this sector are rarely dramatic. They are a convincing email that reroutes a wire, or a password reused from a personal account.
At the same time, the paperwork burden is real. Client due diligence, examiner requests, and cyber insurance renewals all ask the same underlying question: can you show that reasonable safeguards exist and are actually followed? Answering that from memory is a bad experience. Answering it from documentation is routine.
We handle both sides. The technical controls that make fraud hard, and the written evidence that makes reviews boring.
How we help
What working with us looks like
Controls that make fraud hard to pull off
Multi-factor sign-ins everywhere, alerts on mailbox forwarding rules and unusual logins, and banners on outside email. We also help you set a verification step for payment instruction changes, which is the control that actually stops the loss.
Layered defense with 24/7 automated monitoring
Modern protection on every device, filtering that catches impersonation attempts, and automated monitoring that can contain a compromised machine around the clock. Our team responds during business hours, with incidents prioritized.
Documentation built for review
Written security policies, access reviews, vendor lists, and an incident response plan, kept current rather than written once. When a client questionnaire or an exam arrives, you are assembling, not authoring.
Email security, encryption, and retention
Secure sending for statements and identity documents, plus retention and search configured so that requests for old communications are a lookup instead of an archaeology project.
Reliable access to the systems you bill through
Portfolio, CRM, planning, and custodial platforms all have to work together on machines that stay patched. We keep that foundation steady and deal with the vendors when it does not.
Training aimed at the scams you actually see
Short, practical training on impersonated clients, fake custodial notices, and urgent transfer requests, so your team hesitates in the right places.
What you get
The outcomes that matter here
- Payment fraud attempts that hit a verification step instead of a bank account
- Client due-diligence questionnaires answered from documentation, not from memory
- Client data protected by controls that hold up to outside review
- Predictable, flat-rate technology costs you can plan around
Services
Where we usually start with financial firms
All eight of our services are available to you. These are the four that tend to matter most in your line of work.
Cybersecurity & Threat Management
Layered protection, email defense against impersonation, and automated monitoring watching around the clock.
Service detailsCompliance & vCISO
Written policies, access reviews, and exam or audit preparation, with senior security guidance on call.
Service detailsCloud & Infrastructure
Microsoft 365 configured properly, with multi-factor sign-ins, retention, and secure access from anywhere.
Service detailsBackup & Disaster Recovery
Tested recovery so an outage during a closing, a filing deadline, or market hours does not stop the firm.
Service detailsSee all eight services, or read about managed plans versus one-off help.
Rules and requirements
What you may need to answer for
What tends to drive security requirements for financial firms.
- SEC and FINRA expectations
- Registered firms are expected to safeguard client information, retain business communications, review access, and have a written plan for responding to incidents. Examiners ask to see the documents, not just hear the intent.
- Gramm-Leach-Bliley Safeguards Rule
- Requires a written information security program with a named person responsible, risk assessment, access controls, encryption, and vendor oversight. It reaches further than many firms expect, including some non-bank lenders and tax preparers.
- PCI DSS
- Applies if you take card payments. The practical goal is to keep card data out of your own systems wherever possible, which shrinks both the risk and the paperwork.
- SOC 2
- A compliance framework, and an audit, that shows business clients you handle their data responsibly. It comes up constantly in fintech sales cycles. To be clear, it is an audit standard, not a staffed operations center.
This is a plain-English overview, not legal advice. We work alongside your counsel and auditors, and we'll tell you plainly when something is outside what we do.
FAQ
Questions we hear from financial firms
What cybersecurity rules apply to a small advisory firm?
Registered firms answer to SEC and FINRA expectations around safeguarding client information, retaining communications, and responding to incidents, and many also fall under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Safeguards Rule. If you take card payments, PCI DSS applies as well. The practical translation is the same in every case: written policies, controlled access, encryption, monitoring, training, and a plan you can produce on request.
How do you actually stop a fraudulent wire?
Technology narrows the opening: multi-factor sign-ins make mailbox takeover much harder, alerts flag suspicious forwarding rules, and outside-sender banners make impersonation easier to spot. The control that stops the loss, though, is procedural. Any change to payment instructions gets verified through a known phone number, never through the email thread that requested it. We help you put that in writing and make it stick.
Can you help us prepare for an exam or a client security review?
Yes. We keep the underlying documentation current: your written security program, access reviews, vendor inventory, training records, and incident response plan. When a questionnaire or exam request arrives, the work is gathering evidence that already exists rather than writing policy under a deadline.
Do you support fintech companies as well as traditional firms?
Yes. Fintech adds two things: a product that customers rely on, and enterprise buyers who send serious security questionnaires. We cover both the internal side (devices, sign-ins, monitoring, policy) and the build side, including secure cloud setup and hands-on testing of AI features by our security team before you put them in front of customers.
Is our data safer on-premise or in the cloud?
For most small firms, a properly configured cloud setup is safer, because the platform handles patching and physical security at a scale you cannot match. The catch is the word "properly." Most cloud breaches we see are not the provider failing, they are default settings, missing multi-factor authentication, and over-broad sharing. That configuration work is what we do.
Related reading
Worth a few minutes
Cybersecurity
A Practical Cybersecurity Checklist for Small Businesses
Cyber threats don't skip small businesses. They target them. Here are the ten essential security controls every SMB should have in place, in plain English.
Read the postCybersecurity
How Small Businesses Get Hit by Ransomware (and How to Stop It)
Ransomware is one of the costliest threats facing SMBs today. Learn the common ways attacks start and the layered defenses that keep your business resilient.
Read the postWe also work with
On-site across Rock Hill, SC, the Charlotte metro, and surrounding communities. Remote worldwide, including the US, UK, and Australia.
Let's harden your firm
Book a free, no-pressure assessment. We'll review what you have, flag the risks specific to your field, and show you exactly where we can help.