By Mykolas Rambus, CEO of Hush

Most significant cyber incidents affecting wealthy families do not begin with sophisticated hacking. They begin with ordinary decisions made on familiar devices, by trusted people, under time pressure.

In today’s digital environment, those moments can expose far more than money. They can trigger reputational damage, family conflict, and even real-world safety risks. For family offices tasked with protecting generational wealth, this represents a fundamental shift in what risk now looks like.

In my decades of experience protecting sensitive systems at the intersection of wealth and technology, I have seen this shift accelerate. Cyber risk is no longer a narrow IT concern. It has become a strategic risk that touches capital, identity, reputation, and personal safety all at once. As digital connectivity extends into every aspect of modern wealth, exposure has grown in ways many families do not fully see.

Recent research from the Chubb 2025 Wealth Report: The Resilient Mindset reinforces this reality. Among affluent North Americans surveyed, cybersecurity ranked as the top concern, even as many households lack comprehensive planning or protection to address it.
Source: Chubb 2025 Wealth Report (PDF): https://www.chubb.com/content/dam/chubb-sites/chubb-com/us-en/individuals-families/agent-marketing/wealth-report/chubb-2025-wealth-report-digital-fa-ada-pages.pdf
Related summary: https://news.chubb.com/2025-12-03-Chubb-2025-Wealth-Survey-The-Resilient-Mindset

The Disconnect Between Awareness and Protection

The Chubb report reveals a persistent disconnect. Families recognize cyber risk as serious, yet many still rely on protections that were never designed for how modern wealth actually operates.

Traditional risk frameworks focus on investment performance, estate planning, and physical assets. But digital systems now underpin nearly every decision. Mobile banking, encrypted messaging, smart homes, and AI-driven communications have collapsed the distance between convenience and exposure. A single lapse can now trigger financial loss, reputational damage, and personal consequences in rapid succession.

Increasingly, cyber incidents become reputation events. Private communications, sensitive family information, philanthropic strategies, and business negotiations can be exposed, manipulated, or selectively leaked. In the context of generational wealth, reputational harm can affect far more than a public image. It can disrupt governance, weaken relationships with counterparties, reduce access to opportunities, and destabilize family cohesion.

Even more concerning is the growing connection between digital exposure and physical risk. Doxxing, impersonation, location leakage, and online harassment have created a direct pathway from online incidents to real-world threats. What begins as a cyber issue can quickly become a personal safety concern.

Why Family Offices Are Particularly Vulnerable

Family offices operate at the intersection of personal life, financial authority, and institutional trust. Unlike large enterprises, many do not have dedicated security teams or continuous monitoring. At the same time, they manage assets and information that are highly attractive to attackers.

Common exposure points include:

• Personal email, messaging applications, and mobile devices used for high-value decisions

• Household staff and personal assistants with broad digital access

• Advisors and vendors whose security standards vary widely

• Legacy accounts, old credentials, and long-standing digital data trails

• Public-facing profiles that allow attackers to assemble detailed targeting maps

These risks rarely appear in traditional audits. They are exploited through impersonation, fraud, extortion, and increasingly sophisticated social engineering.

From Protection to Resilience

To respond effectively, family offices and wealthy families must move beyond ad hoc security measures and adopt a deliberate approach to digital risk. That requires four core actions.

1. Reframe cyber as enterprise risk.
Cybersecurity should be addressed at the board and family council level, with clear ownership, defined escalation paths, and regular review alongside financial, reputational, and physical risks.

2. Map the full ecosystem of exposure.
Risk does not end with corporate systems. It includes personal devices, household technology, advisors, staff, travel patterns, and the digital identity footprint accumulated over time.

3. Prepare for response and recovery, not just prevention.
No system is immune. Families need clear incident response plans, decision-making authority, and rehearsed playbooks that address financial loss, reputational containment, and physical security escalation.

4. Use a solution designed specifically for family and personal risk.
Most cybersecurity tools were built for enterprises, not families. Family offices need platforms that understand how wealth, identity, reputation, and daily life intersect. They need solutions that continuously reduce exposure, monitor emerging threats, and support families before, during, and after an incident. This is the gap Hush was built to address.

At Hush, we focus on reducing digital exposure across the entire attack surface. That includes not only corporate systems, but also personal, reputational, and lifestyle risks that attackers increasingly target.

Moving Forward With Intent

The Chubb 2025 Wealth Report reinforces a simple reality. Awareness alone does not prevent loss. Wealth preservation in the digital era requires governance, preparation, and tools aligned with how families actually live and operate.

For family offices committed to protecting both capital and legacy, cyber risk can no longer remain implicit. It must be managed deliberately, continuously, and with solutions designed for the level of risk involved.

About the Author

Mykolas Rambus is the CEO of Hush, a digital security platform built for wealthy families and family offices. He has served as Chief Information Officer at both public and private companies, led the consumer data division at Equifax, and worked directly with global family offices across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Mykolas also served as CEO of Wealth-X, the leading intelligence firm for wealth and KYC data, and brings deep expertise in cybersecurity, data intelligence, and enterprise risk governance.