Why the Wealthy Are Hiring “Cyber Bodyguards”

Fortune

Artificial intelligence isn’t just transforming business — it’s fueling a new era of cybercrime. As a key U.S. cyber law expires, the country could be entering one of its most vulnerable cybersecurity moments. From billion-dollar corporate breaches to the rise of “concierge cybersecurity” for the wealthy, Fortune explains what’s driving the surge in digital attacks — and how both companies and individuals are defending their data, assets, and reputations in the age of AI.

Transcript

00:00Artificial intelligence is helping to fuel a new era of cybercrime.

00:04Artificial intelligence is poised to rapidly accelerate the threat from online criminals.

00:10Now, as a key U.S. cybersecurity law expires,

00:13experts say the country could be entering one of the most vulnerable moments in cybersecurity.

00:18As that risk grows, corporations are spending billions on digital defenses,

00:22while wealthy individuals are turning to concierge-style cyber services.

00:27Here's an inside look at what's driving these digital attacks

00:30and how both institutions and high-net-worth families are scrambling

00:34to keep their data, assets, and reputations intact.

00:41Everything is connected. Everything's online.

00:43And that allows the attackers so many different areas to attack from.

00:50Anwar Visram is the co-founder of Hard Target,

00:53a concierge cybersecurity firm that protects high-net-worth families,

00:57athletes, and executives from digital threats.

01:00It's one of a growing number of personalized cybersecurity services

01:04that function like digital bodyguards.

01:06Our clients don't need another antivirus subscription.

01:10What they need is a digital protection detail.

01:13High-profile hacks, from Jeff Bezos' phone to the Twitter accounts of Bill Gates and Elon Musk,

01:19have shown how exposed high-net-worth individuals can be to cyber attacks.

01:24Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was targeted in an alleged phone hacking scheme conducted by Saudi Arabia.

01:30While larger companies are investing heavily in corporate cybersecurity,

01:34personal systems and home devices remain easier targets,

01:37often unprotected and connected to dozens of other networks.

01:42I had one family come to me where they had experienced a complete digital compromise.

01:47That means their cell phones were compromised, their IoT or their, you know, smart TV,

01:52their computers, their online accounts.

01:56Everything was completely compromised.

01:58They even compromised the security cameras and the security system.

02:01Protection from attacks like these doesn't always come cheap.

02:05Cybersecurity concierge services can run anywhere from a few thousand dollars a year

02:10to more than $45,000 for individuals and up to $100,000 for businesses,

02:15depending on the level of coverage.

02:18Many people don't know how large their digital footprint is.

02:21And so the more there is about you, there is more information to then to try to compromise

02:26and exploit something within that footprint.

02:29Curtis Seuss, CEO of another firm called Concierge Cyber,

02:33says many clients don't seek help until after a breach has already happened.

02:38You have to presume to everyone, today you've been compromised.

02:41How many times do we all get the letters indicating that you've been a victim of a data breach of a company?

02:46We're seeing all sorts of cyber attacks where that information is out there in the public domain,

02:53bad people using that information to then perpetuate physical attacks and or negative sentiment against an individual company or person.

03:02Many large organizations rely on cloud infrastructure and third party software, increasing the number of entry points for attackers.

03:10Experts say that this type of interconnectivity is driving a rise in cyber attacks.

03:15That same vulnerability played a key role in the recent cyber attack on cloud giant Salesforce,

03:20where a hacking group claimed to steal nearly a billion records from dozens of organizations.

03:25There was an application that connects to Salesforce and unfortunately they suffered an attack.

03:32And that in turn created a vulnerability for all of the customers of this application.

03:38It creates this big spiderweb tangle of risk that is very important companies manage.

03:46Artificial intelligence is also rapidly changing the scale and sophistication of cybercrime.

03:51Just a couple of years ago, when we looked at the time it took from when they got in to when attackers were impacting an organization,

03:58it was about nine or ten days.

04:00In the past year, we've seen that drop to under a day.

04:04In terms of sophistication, it enables an attacker who may not otherwise know how to code

04:09to use vibe hacking essentially to be able to use ransomware where otherwise they may not have the sophistication.

04:16We're seeing a lot of these deep fakes, especially with business email compromise too,

04:21where the attackers, the intent is not to physically harm you, but to steal your money.

04:26But cybersecurity firms are also using AI to stay ahead of attackers.

04:30On Fortune's 2026 Cyber60 list, which highlights the top venture backed cybersecurity startups yet to go public,

04:37the number of AI focused companies has doubled since last year.

04:40AI is a huge part of how we operate.

04:44At the end of the day, cybersecurity is a data problem, right?

04:47There's just so much information out there.

04:49And humans just don't have the capability to identify the signal and all that noise.

04:55But AI is actually really good at that.

04:58Experts say the motives behind these attacks vary widely, from political sabotage to financial gain.

05:05So the attacks today are multifaceted, right?

05:08So state-sponsored actors are interested in intellectual property.

05:12A state-sponsored actor may want to gain control of critical infrastructure,

05:16so that if they perpetrate some type of an actual physical attack,

05:20they can divert the defending country with disrupting the critical infrastructure.

05:26Now, a 2015 law that helped the U.S. government guard against cyber threats recently expired.

05:33For the past decade, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA,

05:37has served as a key framework for the nation's cyber defenses.

05:40It granted legal protections that encouraged companies to share threat intelligence with the federal government and their peers.

05:47Cyber is really a global issue.

05:50And from U.S., it's every corporation, every person, every corporation, every entity.

05:56We're all on the same side of the wall.

05:59And our adversaries are on the other side.

06:02And the challenge with that wall is that the defender has to protect everything all the time.

06:09The adversary just needs one way in.

06:11It's truly important that everyone work together on the same side.

06:17And a big part of that is the information sharing,

06:20the collaboration, the cooperation amongst both private and public.

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