Blogs

Dark web monitoring is the ongoing search for your exposed business information in hidden online markets, breach collections, and other channels where stolen data circulates. You receive alerts when a service finds information tied to your firm, giving your team a chance to secure accounts and investigate threats to client data.

Your data security Office 365 plan should cover the daily work that puts client records at risk: sending documents, receiving payment instructions, accessing accounts remotely, and sharing files with outside professionals.

To strengthen Microsoft 365 Data Security for RIAs, you need enforced MFA, controlled file sharing, protected email, tested recovery, and records showing that each safeguard works. Your goal is to protect client information while giving your compliance team clear evidence of how your firm manages access and responds to risk.

Your SMS compliance duties come from several places. Securities rules govern required records and supervision. Consent laws govern certain texts you send, while carrier standards govern access to messaging networks.

Choosing the best CRM for financial advisors also means checking what happens after a meeting ends: who receives the follow-up task, where communications are preserved, and whether connected systems receive the correct update. Those details deserve as much attention as the contact screen.

For your firm, the SharePoint vs Egnyte decision reaches beyond file storage. You need to separate everyday collaboration from regulatory recordkeeping, confirm which controls your licenses include, and preserve required records during a migration. In regulated industries, a well-configured platform still needs documented policies and ongoing oversight.

Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 works best as a structured way to assign ownership, assess gaps, and build evidence that a firm actually manages its cybersecurity risks rather than just claiming to.

An RIA's compliance obligations come primarily from the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, SEC rules under that Act, and — for state-registered firms — the Uniform Securities Act as adopted by each state, with additional cybersecurity, recordkeeping, and marketing requirements layered on top.

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace can both support an RIA's SEC obligations, but neither platform makes your firm compliant on its own.

A solid business continuity plan template for RIAs gives you a fill-in-the-blanks document that names who acts, what recovers first, and how clients stay informed, built around your firm's actual size and operations rather than a generic checklist.

A cyberattack at a small advisory firm rarely starts with a dramatic breach. It usually starts with one employee clicking a link, one vendor losing a password, or one laptop left unlocked. FINRA has spent years documenting these patterns, and its Small Firm Cybersecurity .

The FINRA Small Firm Cybersecurity Checklist works best as a structured self-assessment that small firms use to build, document, and continuously improve a cybersecurity program organized around five functions: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover.

The most effective IT disaster recovery plan for RIAs pairs a documented, tested recovery template with clear recovery time objectives for your custodial platform, CRM, email, and identity systems, ranked in the order your business actually needs them back.

A vulnerability assessment scans your systems for known weaknesses and hands you a prioritized list. A penetration test goes further: a skilled tester tries to actually break in, using those weaknesses to see how far an attacker could get.

For most RIAs, the choice between EDR and MDR comes down to one practical question: does your firm have people ready to act on a threat alert at 2 a.m. on a Sunday, or do you need a team that already does? Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is software that watches your laptops, servers, and workstations for suspicious activity. Managed Detection and Response (MDR) adds trained analysts who monitor that software around the clock, investigate what it finds, and respond befo

A well-run cybersecurity risk assessment for RIAs gives you a ranked, documented picture of your firm's real exposure, so decisions about budget, staffing, and policy are based on evidence instead of guesswork.

Cyber liability insurance exists to soften that blow, but the coverage only works if you understand what it pays for and where it stops.

Every RIA examiner request starts the same way: produce the emails. Choosing between Smarsh, Global Relay, and Microsoft for compliance email archiving comes down to how much retrieval, supervision, and eDiscovery work you want your archive to handle on its own versus how much your compliance team will manage manually.

Choosing between Citrix ShareFile and Microsoft SharePoint is not just an IT decision. For an RIA, it touches client trust, regulatory exposure, and how your team actually gets work done every day.

The first hours after a ransomware attack determine whether a firm faces a manageable disruption or a lasting crisis involving client data, trading workflows, and regulatory scrutiny.