A short briefing on the places where wealthy families lose money. No technology, no fear, seven concrete questions.
Most security conversations revolve around passwords and virus protection. For wealthy families the damage happens elsewhere: where money is released and where trust can be exploited. The following seven questions test exactly those places. You need no technology to answer them, only honest answers from your own house.
Does every payment above a defined amount require two people to approve it, regardless of who instructs it, even when the instruction appears to come from the principal?
Is there a fixed rule that unusual or urgent payment instructions are confirmed back via a pre-registered number before they are carried out?
Do you have an agreed code word or a control question for the case where a call supposedly comes from the principal, a family member or an advisor and pushes for immediate action?
Does your team know that time pressure and confidentiality are the most common hallmarks of fraud, and are they allowed to slow such instructions down without fear?
Is the access of household and family-office staff reliably and completely revoked on departure, including shared passwords and remote access?
Are the accounts and devices through which family finances run kept separate from the everyday private accounts of family members, so that a compromised private account does not lead directly to the money?
Does every person involved know what to do in the first thirty minutes when a fraud attempt, a lost phone or an account takeover comes to light, and have you played that through at least once?
These seven questions cover no technology. They cover processes and habits, and that is exactly where it is decided whether an attack becomes expensive or comes to nothing.
If you cannot clearly answer individual questions, that is no cause for worry but a good starting point. A confidential first conversation puts your situation into context, without you having to give a single detail about your family in advance.
Swiss, discreet, independent. A first exchange puts your situation into context, without obligation.
