Family Office Security Advisory | Batten Black
For Family Offices

The office manages the wealth.
We manage what targets it.

Family offices carry a concentrated attack surface — principals, entities, staff, and properties — that no single product was built to protect. Batten Black provides coordinated advisory across all of it, through one dedicated advisor.

Discreet by design. Your name never appears in our marketing. Not now, not ever.

0%
of North American family offices experienced a cyberattack in the past two years
0%
of attacked offices hit through phishing — most commonly business email compromise
$0M
lost in a single deepfake video call — a named, documented incident in 2024
Arup / Hong Kong Police, 2024
0%
have no incident response plan at all — the highest-risk posture in the sector
North America Is The Primary Target

American family offices are the most attacked in the world.

The combination of publicly accessible corporate records, data broker infrastructure, and concentrated private wealth makes North American principals the highest-value targets in the global threat landscape. The data is consistent across every major study.

North America 0%
Global average 0%
Europe 0%
Asia Pacific 0%
Offices over $1B AUM 0%
Family offices reporting a cyberattack in the past two years. Source: Deloitte Family Office Cybersecurity Report, 2024
The Structural Problem

The office wasn't built to carry this much risk.

Corporate enterprises have CISOs, legal teams, and security infrastructure. Family offices have none of that — but they hold balance sheets, personal data, and operational access that rivals mid-sized institutions.

The combination is what makes family offices the fastest-growing target category in the threat landscape: concentrated value, limited defenses, and a web of principals, advisors, and staff that creates exposure on every side.

Multiple principals, one attack surface

Spouses, adult children, and staff family members are all potential entry points. Exposure at the edge compromises the center.

Public records create a ready-made dossier

Corporate filings, property records, political contributions, and board roles combine into a detailed intelligence package — no breach required.

Staff access is an understated risk

Household staff, assistants, and estate managers often hold operational access without structured security protocols around them.

Properties extend the perimeter

Multiple residences and estate networks each carry their own exposure — and most have never been assessed together as a single risk picture.

How Attacks Are Delivered

Phishing is the entry point. What follows is the threat.

Most family office attacks begin with a single well-crafted email. The sophistication lies not in the technical intrusion but in the research that makes the impersonation believable.

Phishing & BEC0%
Malware0%
Social engineering0%
AI deepfake / voice cloning0%
Attack vectors reported by family offices that experienced a cyberattack. Deepfake figure from BlackCloak / Ponemon 2025. All others: Deloitte 2024.
0%

of family offices say they were unprepared for the attack when it came. Only 26% have a robust incident response plan in place. Source: Deloitte, 2024.

How Attacks Begin

They don't target the office. They map it.

A motivated threat actor begins with what is publicly available. Business filings, property records, family social media, and advisor relationships are assembled into a working map before any technical intrusion begins.

This is the threat model Batten Black was built around. We find the map before they do, and remove what makes it useful.

See your exposure
Layer 01

Advisor and vendor relationships

Attorneys, accountants, and investment managers are researched and impersonated. A spoofed email from a known advisor is the most reliable wire fraud entry point.

Layer 02

Entity and ownership structure

LLCs, trusts, and holding structures often appear in public records, mapping the financial architecture to anyone willing to search.

Layer 03

Principal digital exposure

Personal email addresses, mobile numbers, and home addresses surface through data broker databases and breach datasets — ready for credential attacks and targeted phishing.

Layer 04

Family and staff as entry points

A child's public social media or a household manager's compromised email can open access to the principal's environment without ever targeting them directly.

Exploitation

Wire fraud, voice cloning, physical targeting

The assembled map enables deepfake emergency calls, vendor impersonation, and in serious cases, physical access attempts against principals or their families.

What Batten Black Does

Six domains. One coordinated strategy.

Hover any domain to see the threat it addresses. We assess all of them together because the people targeting your office don't respect the lines between them.

01

Principal Digital Security

Devices, accounts, email, and communications for each principal assessed, hardened, and monitored. Trusted technical partners coordinated for implementation.

If unaddressed

Account takeover & credential compromise

Exposed personal email is the most common entry point to financial accounts, business systems, and family communications.

02

Data Exposure Reduction

Public profiles, property records, data broker listings, and corporate filings inventoried and systematically reduced. The intelligence map that enables targeted attacks is dismantled.

If unaddressed

Social engineering from public data

Home address, family structure, and routines are freely searchable — providing everything needed to stage a convincing impersonation or physical approach.

03

Identity & Financial Safeguards

Identity exposure, account access controls, wire transfer protocols, and document integrity reviewed across entities. BEC protections structured across operational accounts.

If unaddressed

Wire fraud & account takeover

BEC remains the top financial crime targeting family offices. A single unverified wire instruction can result in an eight-figure loss with no recourse.

04

Estate & Residential Security

Each property assessed for access control, perimeter integrity, and network security. Strategy set and vetted implementation partners coordinated.

If unaddressed

Vendor impersonation & physical access

Contractor and vendor relationships are a documented entry point. Smart home systems connected to the internet can expose perimeter controls to remote access.

05

Travel & Mobility Risk

Pre-travel exposure reviews and intelligence briefings inform protocols for principals and family traveling domestically and internationally.

If unaddressed

Pattern analysis & travel-window targeting

Known travel schedules create predictable windows of exposure — at the property, in transit, and at the destination. Each is exploited differently.

06

Staff & Vendor Risk Framework

Staff access structures assessed, security protocols developed for household and office personnel, and verification procedures established for advisor interactions.

If unaddressed

Insider access & family emergency scams

Staff hold physical and digital access that bypasses most security controls. Family emergency scams are among the highest-conversion social engineering attacks.

← Hover any card to see the threat it addresses →

How It Works

One engagement. Total picture.

The assessment begins where an adversary would. What follows is coordinated remediation and an ongoing advisory relationship that keeps pace with the family's changing risk profile.

Step 01

Confidential Assessment

We begin with open-source intelligence — mapping exposure across principals, entities, properties, and staff using the same methods a sophisticated adversary would employ.

Deliverable: written assessment covering breach exposure, public records, property linkage, entity visibility, and a phased remediation roadmap across all domains.
Step 02

Remediation & Hardening

Your advisor coordinates execution across every finding — prioritizing critical vulnerabilities first, verifying controls are properly implemented, and managing complexity on behalf of the office.

Approach: one advisor coordinates all partners and tracks completion. The office receives confirmation, not a checklist to manage.
Step 03

Ongoing Advisory

A liquidity event, a new property, a staff transition — each can shift exposure overnight. Your advisor provides continuous oversight and annual reassessment.

Cadence: continuous monitoring, standing availability for emerging situations, and full annual reassessment across all domains.
For Trusted Advisors

When your clients ask about personal security, you should have an answer.

Wealth managers, private bankers, family lawyers, and estate advisors increasingly encounter clients for whom personal security has become a material concern. The incidents that trigger these conversations often come before any formal program is in place.

Batten Black works discreetly alongside existing advisor relationships. We do not cross lanes or solicit other services. Our role is to handle the security picture so you can focus on the work you were engaged to do.

Discuss a client introduction
Signal

A principal mentions receiving a suspicious call that seemed to know too much about their business or family.

Signal

A wire transfer was nearly completed to the wrong account before someone caught it at the last moment.

Signal

A family member's information appeared somewhere it shouldn't — a data broker, a public record, a press mention.

Signal

A new property, a liquidity event, or a change in public visibility has raised the principal's concern about family exposure.

They found things about our family in an afternoon that we did not know were public. Within weeks it was gone, and for the first time we understood our own exposure. It felt less like hiring a vendor and more like gaining a private chief of security.
Martin H. · Family Office Principal · Mercer Island, WA
Get Started

A confidential assessment
tells you exactly where you stand.

We map the exposure, show you what a motivated actor would find, and give the office a coordinated path forward.

Book a Confidential Assessment

Discreet. No obligation. Initial findings typically delivered within two weeks.