We know financial services
A financial advisor's office looks simple from the outside: a few workstations, Microsoft 365, a CRM, and a portal to the custodian. Underneath, it's one of the most regulated small-business environments there is. Client financial data, Social Security numbers, account numbers, and signed documents move through email every day, and GLBA, the FTC Safeguards Rule, and often the SEC expect you to prove how you protect them.
We support independent advisors, wealth management firms, mortgage and lending offices, and insurance agencies across Sarasota, Manatee, and Charlotte counties. We build the controls the rules require, and we keep the evidence an examiner or insurer will ask to see.
What the rules actually ask of your IT
The GLBA Safeguards Rule, as amended, is specific. It requires a designated qualified individual, a written risk assessment, access controls, encryption of customer data at rest and in transit, multi-factor authentication for anyone accessing customer information, continuous monitoring or annual penetration testing, staff training, vendor oversight, an incident response plan, and annual reporting to ownership. The FTC added a 30-day breach notification requirement in 2024.
We provide the technical side of every one of those, and our Compliance add-on adds the risk assessment, documentation, and audit-ready reporting.
What we manage for financial firms
- Workstations, laptops, and the office network, with full-disk encryption verified on every device
- Microsoft 365 with MFA, conditional access, retention policies, and journaling for archiving requirements
- Email security tuned for the phishing patterns that target advisors: fake custodian notices, client impersonation, wire requests
- Endpoint detection and response with 24/7 monitoring
- Secure client document exchange and e-signature integrations
- Encrypted, immutable, tested backups of client files and email archives
- Vendor access documentation for custodians, CRMs, planning software, and portals
- Annual risk assessment, penetration testing coordination, and the evidence file for your exam
Common problems we fix in the first 30 days
- MFA turned on for some staff but not enforced for everyone, including the owner
- Client statements sitting in an unencrypted shared drive or a personal Dropbox
- Email retention set to Microsoft's defaults, which don't meet archiving rules
- No written incident response plan, or one nobody has read
- Remote access over a consumer VPN or, worse, Remote Desktop open to the internet
- A former assistant's mailbox still active and forwarding
Cyber insurance
Financial firms get the most demanding cyber insurance questionnaires we see. Insurers ask about MFA on email and remote access, endpoint detection, tested backups, privileged account management, and training. We close those gaps in priority order, usually within 30 to 60 days, and give your broker documentation for each answer. Here's what insurers are asking for now.