The Family Cyber Hygiene List — Five Moves Before Any Policy
By Andrew O'Neill · Founder & Principal
Families ask us about cyber coverage more than they used to, and they're right to. But a policy is the backstop, not the front line — it responds after a loss. The moves that actually keep a family out of trouble cost nothing and sit upstream of any insurance. Here are the five we walk clients through first.
1. Turn on multi-factor authentication where it matters
Email, banking, brokerage, and anything tied to money or identity. Multi-factor authentication is the single highest-return step available, because it defeats the most common attack: a stolen password. If you do one thing on this list, do this.
2. Give every important account its own password
Reused passwords are how one breach becomes ten. A password manager makes this painless — it generates and remembers a unique, long password for every account, so no one in the family has to. A leak in one place then stays in one place.
3. Freeze your credit
A security freeze at the three credit bureaus is free, reversible, and stops someone from opening credit in your name. For a family with a public profile or significant assets, it's one of the most effective and least discussed protections there is. Do it for the adults, and for any child who has a Social Security number.
4. Treat the phone call as fake until it proves otherwise
The most effective attacks on wealthy families aren't technical. They're a convincing message from the bank, the title company, or a relative in trouble. Set one rule: money never moves on an inbound call or email alone. Verify wire instructions by calling a number you already have, every time. This habit stops the losses technology and insurance can't.
5. Lock down the people around the money
Household staff, a family office, anyone with access to accounts and systems is part of the attack surface. Basic training, separate logins, and least-privilege access — people reach only what their role requires — close the door sophisticated attackers count on being left open.
Then, and only then, the policy
With those five in place, cyber and fraud coverage does its real job: catching what gets through. We help families place it and coordinate the protocols above so the coverage and the habits reinforce each other. If you'd like, we'll start with a quiet review of where your family actually stands.