Client trust breaks the moment an account is touched.
A compromised inbox or a fraudulent wire request doesn't just cost you the loss itself, it triggers SEC Regulation S-P notification, invites a FINRA inquiry, and hands a client a reason to move their money to the advisor down the street. We build the controls that keep that from happening, and document them the way an examiner actually wants to see.
Corey Watson · Managing Member, Limehawk•Updated Jul 2026•6 minWhat's actually at risk
Why financial advisors are a specific kind of target
Every client file is a map of exactly where someone’s money lives: account numbers, custodian relationships, wire instructions, Social Security numbers. Fraudsters know an advisory practice moves real money on a client’s say-so, which makes a compromised inbox worth far more to an attacker than the data alone. We saw this exact playbook run against a title company in a business email compromise that nearly moved a high-six-figure wire before we caught it, the same attack works just as well against a distribution request or an ACH transfer out of a client’s account.
What compliance regime applies to a financial advisor?
RIAs answer to SEC Regulation S-P and the SEC’s cybersecurity requirements; broker-dealers and dual registrants add FINRA cybersecurity rules on top. GLBA’s Safeguards Rule sits underneath both, requiring a written information security program, periodic risk assessments, and oversight of any vendor who touches client data. None of these regimes mandate a specific product, they expect documented, risk-appropriate controls and a record you can hand an examiner on request.
Books-and-records isn’t just a compliance line item
SEC Rule 17a-4 and the parallel Advisers Act recordkeeping requirements mean client communications, transaction records, and compliance documentation have to be retained for set periods, often in a format that can’t be altered after the fact. That makes your email archiving and backup retention a records-management control, not just an IT nicety, and it has to hold up during an exam, not only during a disaster.
What an outage costs a financial advisor specifically
A locked-out advisor or a down portfolio system during market hours isn’t an IT inconvenience, it can mean a missed rebalance, a client unable to execute at the price they wanted, or a gap in the order record a compliance review catches later. We’ve pulled advisors back into locked-down machines within minutes during exactly that kind of time-sensitive crunch, see our emergency local admin access report, because “we’ll get to it after the market closes” isn’t an option when a client is waiting on a trade.
How we secure client accounts day to day
Multi-factor authentication and email encryption are the baseline, but the real work is in what happens when something slips. We audit endpoints for the kind of quiet policy drift that turns into an exam finding, like the passwords-in-spreadsheets problem we found during a compliance audit, files a password manager was supposed to make obsolete but didn’t. Full-disk encryption goes on every machine so a lost laptop is unreadable, not just password-protected, we rolled that out compliance-wide for one client in 72 hours across their entire fleet. And if a device does walk out the door, mobile device management means we can remotely wipe it before any client account data is exposed, the same way we did for a client whose laptop was stolen at an airport.
What you get
- Email encryption and secure client communication
- Multi-factor authentication across email and portfolio systems
- Wire and transfer fraud controls and staff training
- Email archiving built for books-and-records retention
- Full-disk encryption across every endpoint
- Mobile device management with remote wipe
- Under-15-minute response on critical, market-hours issues
Fifteen minutes with Corey on your actual environment, email security, endpoints, wire controls, whatever's keeping you up. No sales deck.
Financial advisor IT questions we actually get
Pricing included — because “call for pricing” is how IT companies hide the number.
See full pricing →What does a breach actually cost a financial advisory practice?
Beyond any direct fraud loss, a breach involving client account data triggers SEC Regulation S-P notification obligations, a FINRA inquiry if you're a broker-dealer or dually registered, and the kind of reputational hit that's hard to recover from in a business built entirely on client trust. Clients who hand you their retirement savings expect their data handled at least as carefully as their money.
What compliance regime actually applies to a financial advisor's IT?
RIAs answer to SEC Regulation S-P (safeguarding client information) and the SEC's cybersecurity rules; broker-dealers and dual registrants add FINRA cybersecurity requirements on top. GLBA's Safeguards Rule sits underneath both, requiring a written information security program, risk assessments, and vendor oversight. All three expect documented controls and an audit trail, not just good intentions.
What are books-and-records requirements, and how does IT factor in?
SEC Rule 17a-4 (and the parallel Advisers Act recordkeeping rules) require firms to retain client communications, transaction records, and compliance documentation for set periods, often in a non-rewriteable format. That means your email archiving, backup retention, and access logs have to be built to survive an exam, not just a disaster. It's a records-management problem before it's an IT problem, and we build the controls to satisfy both.
What happens if a system is down during market hours?
A locked-out advisor or a down trading platform during market hours isn't just lost billable time, it can mean a missed rebalance, a client unable to execute a trade at the price they wanted, or a compliance gap if the outage touches order records. That's why our response time on critical issues is under 15 minutes.
Do you support portfolio management and CRM software?
Yes. We manage the infrastructure those platforms run on, servers, workstations, networks, and the Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tenant most practices use for email and file storage, plus the security and access controls layered around whatever portfolio management, CRM, or trading platform your firm runs.
How much does managed IT cost for a financial advisory practice?
Our base rate is $150 per user per month, minimum 3 users, covering unlimited support, endpoint detection and response, email filtering, and password management. Full pricing, including add-ons like managed firewalls and encrypted backup, is published at limehawk.io/pricing.