It started with a single text message on a quiet Friday afternoon: “Urgent—bank alert: unusual transfer. Tap to review.”
The family-office assistant, juggling flights for the principal’s children and gala RSVPs, almost tapped. Almost. Had she done so, the malicious link would have installed spyware designed to hijack the office’s mobile-banking app and queue a seven-figure wire.
That near-miss is no anomaly. As private wealth has become smarter about traditional network security, attackers have pivoted to social-engineering and mobile-first scams aimed at the people around the money—executive assistants, adult children, even trusted chauffeurs.
Family offices are especially attractive targets: They control concentrated wealth, rely on lean teams, and rarely publicise breaches for fear of reputational damage.
Forty-three percent of family offices worldwide suffered at least one cyberattack in the past two years.
Phishing emails and bogus text messages now combine with deep-fake voice calls, QR-code traps, and third-party data-broker leaks.
According to UK Finance, criminals stole £629 million from UK consumers in the first half of 2025, with 66% of authorized push payment cases starting online.
One-third of attacked family offices suffered tangible damage—operational disruption (20%) or direct financial loss (18%), according to Deloitte.
(See Impact Wealth’s digital-hygiene primer for background.)
Mobile chat is the new inbox for ultra-wealthy households: gala QR codes, aircraft-catering invoices, even crypto pitches land first on WhatsApp or iMessage.
Malwarebytes re-engineered its award-winning antivirus stack for that reality. Scam Guard, baked into Malwarebytes Mobile Security, uses on-device AI plus cloud intelligence to deliver an instant verdict the moment an assistant drags a screenshot, link, or SMS into the app.
Best for: AI-powered screening of texts, QR codes, and URLs on iOS & Android.
Key advantages
Pricing: Premium Security Antivirus is US $44.99 for one device or US $59.99 for three devices annually. A 10-device ‘Family’ bundle costs US $119.99.
Ideal fit: Any family office where principals live on phones, assistants juggle travel QR codes, and IT wants one vendor for malware, phishing, and identity protection across every OS.
Elite family offices love Microsoft 365 for its friction-free collaboration, but that convenience also invites VIP-impersonation scams.
Abnormal Security’s “Concierge” layer plugs the gap with behavioral AI that learns every sender-recipient relationship inside your tenant, then quarantines anything that looks “off”—before an assistant wires money or releases diligence docs.
Best for: Executive impersonation emails and invoice fraud inside Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.
Key advantages
Pricing: Starts at ~US $35–45 per user/year, with volume discounts for multi-domain family enterprises.
Ideal fit: Offices that run 365, have ≤10 IT headcount, and need a turnkey shield without swapping their secure-email-gateway.
Most breach tools react after malware executes. Darktrace’s self-learning PREVENT/End turns that model upside-down: it continuously maps your unique environment, simulates thousands of “what-if” attacks, then rolls out micro-policies to neutralize gaps—often before a human ticket is opened.
Best for: Proactive “attack-path” modeling across hybrid on-prem, SaaS, and travel laptops.
Key advantages
Pricing: Sensor + SaaS licence typically US $30k–$60k per year for a <250-device estate; module pricing allows phased adoption.
Ideal fit: Multi-jurisdictional families with OT assets (yachts, estates, private jets) that must be protected even when out of IT reach.
Your surname, yacht name, or villa GPS tag often leaks long before criminals email. Echosec Reveal scans social, deep-web, and dark-web sources—Telegram dumps, Discord servers, underground marketplaces—for mentions that could foreshadow scams or reputational hits.
Best for: Continuous external-surface monitoring—social-media chatter, data-broker leaks, dark-web sale of breached credentials.
Key advantages
Pricing: US $15k–$25k annually for three watch-lists, unlimited keyword rules, and 50 alert seats.
Ideal fit: UHNW families with public-facing philanthropy or social-media-active heirs; any office lacking full-time intel analysts but needing brand and physical-security context.
A billion-dollar estate is still managed through WhatsApp groups and ride-share receipts. One zero-click exploit on a staff iPhone can open the door.
Lookout’s mobile endpoint platform analyzes every installed app, OS version, and network handshake to spot sideloaded spyware or Pegasus-style attacks.
Best for: BYOD smartphones and tablets used by principals, PAs, drivers, nannies—all the “small” endpoints attackers love.
Key advantages
Pricing: Typically US $5–8 per device/month, billed annually; bundle discounts with Lookout CASB.
Ideal fit: Family offices where domestic staff and traveling principals share calendars, photos, and docs via personal phones.
Wire rooms still rely on callback verifications—an easy target for deep-fake voice. Onfido Atlas brings bank-grade biometric checks to private-capital workflows: a 15-second selfie + liveness test tied to government ID before any transfer instruction is approved.
Best for: High-value wire approvals, KYC for direct investments, onboarding new art-dealers or property brokers.
Key advantages
Pricing: Pay-as-you-go: ~US $1.30 per check, dropping below US $0.90 at volume; enterprise SLA available.
Ideal fit: Offices executing frequent ad-hoc wires or deal closings where the signer may be abroad or using hotel Wi-Fi.
Even the best filters miss 0.1 % of phish—and that’s all it takes. Cofense pairs human threat analysts (24/7) with automation that yanks confirmed phish from every mailbox and files takedown notices before damage spreads.
Best for: Managed phishing response and large-scale takedown across multiple cloud-mail tenants.
Key advantages
Pricing: Starts near US $20k/year for up to 500 mailboxes; scales by tenant count rather than strict seat counts.
Ideal fit: Lean security teams that need SOC-level phishing defense without hiring their own 24-hour analysts.
Seven-tool stack for 25 users ≈ US $120,000/year—roughly one charter flight. A single investment scam averaged £97.7 million in losses and rose 55% year-on-year.
No algorithm overrides principals who insist on public Instagram geotags. Pair tech with quarterly tabletop drills and clear incident-response runbooks.
Mobile-messaging fraud will still drain US $72 billion globally despite a forecast 10% drop.
Begin with the low-hanging fruit: install Malwarebytes Scam Guard tonight, schedule a Darktrace assessment next week, and set Echosec alerts before the next art-week Instagram post goes live.
In an era where a single breach can erase generations of goodwill, proactive defence is no longer an IT budget line—it’s a fiduciary duty.
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