The author of this article writes that most people are scarcely aware how their information can be used against them. And that’s probably a good thing, but the reality is there are myriad scams, extortion schemes, types of cyberattacks, with more being invented all the time.

The following article is by Mykolas Rambus, of Hush (more on the author below). This is the third item to appear in a series that also appear in Family Wealth Report Family Office Cybersecurity and AI Summit�. The editors of this news service are pleased to share this material; the usual editorial disclaimers apply. Email tom.burroughes@wealthbriefing.com if you wish to respond.

I spent over a decade conducting research on the world’s wealthiest people and their families - people are open books. Unless they’re taking steps to actively be private, it’s extremely likely that everything is out there about them, their families, their companies, and their service providers.

Hush’s experience stems from its founders being targeted at a previous business Wealth-X by threat actors - intelligence services, oligarchs, and organized crime.

It turns out that even publicly available information, which too many people including HNW and UHNW individuals, think is benign, is in fact extremely valuable, sensitive, and sometimes lethal, as in the case of Forbes’ former Russia editor.

Most people are scarcely aware how their information can be used against them. And that’s probably a good thing, but the reality is there are myriad scams, extortion schemes, types of cyberattacks, with more being invented all the time.

“It’s easier to hack a human than a computer�

Yes, the internet was developed for the free flow of information, speed, and in many cases anonymity. But those same virtues have enabled sprawling cybercrime.

In fact, the sum total of all cybercrime is greater than the entire illicit drug trade. It's because cybercrime is getting increasingly easy to perpetrate, is rarely prosecuted, and is relatively low risk compared to drugs, guns, and other illegal activities.

Take SIM swapping for example - a shockingly easy crime that only requires a few pieces of information to effectively impersonate an individual, take over their mobile phone, and defraud someone of their bank or investment account holdings.

Even burglary is fueled by poor privacy, with 80 per cent of thieves researching their target homes and residents online before committing a crime.

“No one really knows exactly how they’ll react when they, or just as likely a member of their family, is threatened.�

Online harassment too has reached epidemic proportions, with two-thirds of young people reporting they’ve experienced such problems, with a quarter of those sharing the harassment was violent in nature. No one really knows exactly how they’ll react when they, or just as likely a member of their family, is threatened.

We see again privacy, or lack thereof, being the problem. Over 90 per cent of cyberattacks, directed at individuals, family offices, and corporations starts with social engineering - and the first step of social engineering is reconnaissance - with hackers learning as much as possible about their intended targets, whether the CFO of the company, a teenage family member, or an accounts payable clerk.

This issue of reconnaissance against people comes up again in reviewing cases of extortion, and especially a variant named virtual kidnapping. It’s entirely enabled by lax privacy, inexpensive voice processing tools, just as is true for sextortion, a crime being actively scaled by criminal gangs around the world.

Assembling all of the risks reviewed so far, is impersonation. Depending on the position, influence, and relationships of the affected individual, the impact can be extraordinary. Unfortunately, generative AI is quickly increasing the risk of impersonation, driven by various motives.

Key Presentation Takeaways

1. Humans are the targets of today’s Internet crime, not systems

2. Bad actors conduct in-depth reconnaissance on families and their employees to find financial opportunities, psychological weaknesses, and work their way into secure systems

3. There are many steps family offices can take to protect privacy, but being aware and actively not oversharing are critical

About the author

Mykolas Rambus is the CEO and Co-Founder of Hush, the AI cybersecurity and privacy platform for companies and their employees. Before Hush, Mykolas was an executive at the credit bureau and data broker Equifax, co-founded Wealth-X, the world’s largest database of information on wealthy people, and led information technology at Forbes Magazine and the real estate firm W.P. Carey. He’s an award-winning technologist, having begun his career launching a tech startup from his dorm room at MIT.

Company profile

Hush is the AI cyberprivacy service that reduces social engineering and phishing risks for family offices and their employees. Hush empowers family members by finding everything the internet knows about them, educating them on their vulnerabilities, and making it one-click easy to reduce their targetable information. Combining AI-led detection and removal, Hush is the most comprehensive privacy defense against cyber, financial, physical, impersonation, and reputational threats. Hush has won several awards including from Google, WealthBriefing, is SOC2 certified, and is a 'top cybersecurity-company-to-watch". Learn more at gohush.com.