The invoice looked legitimate. A family was building a new home and one of them had been shopping online for furniture. When an invoice arrived from a company she had been dealing with, there was no reason to question it. She paid.
What she did not know was that someone had gained access to her email account and had been quietly following her correspondence for weeks. The invoice was fake, but the context around it was real.
For business leaders and their families, sophisticated cyberattacks increasingly extend beyond the individual being targeted. Attackers can look at their personal accounts, devices and online activity, as well as the people around them, to find an accessible route into their digital lives.
Professional success creates a personal security challenge.
Why are business leaders attractive targets for cybercriminals?
Business leaders can be attractive targets because their financial interests and professional position can make a successful attack particularly valuable. Their public visibility may also give attackers more information to work with. This does not mean that every attack is highly targeted. Most cybercrime still reaches us through familiar mass campaigns: a suspicious text about an unpaid bill, an email asking us to reset a password.
There is another category of attacker willing to invest considerably more time in a potential target. In cybersecurity, this is called whale hunting. They select individuals on access to wealth, information or influence, then gather enough details to build a believable attack.
The return explains the effort. Financial assets are an obvious incentive, but the consequences can reach much further. Personal information has value too. It can be used for impersonation, or sold on to third parties. For business owners and prominent families, an incident may also affect a reputation that has taken decades to establish.
This changes the nature of the threat. An attacker who has selected a particular individual can afford to be patient. The furniture invoice worked because it arrived at the exact moment such an invoice made sense.
Why personal cybersecurity extends beyond the individual
Protecting yourself starts with understanding what an attacker can see. Our digital lives leave small pieces of information in many places. Social media can reveal hobbies and relationships, while professional profiles show where we work and fitness apps record our activities. Old websites may still contain contact details, and previous data breaches can expose email addresses or passwords.
Cyberwolf encountered an executive who was a keen cyclist and regularly posted rides on Strava. Pictures showed his distinctive bicycle in enough detail for its serial number to be visible. When he later mentioned that the bicycle had developed a mechanical problem and needed a specific part, he had unintentionally provided almost everything an attacker would need to pose convincingly as a bicycle shop.
The same principle applies to the people around you. A business leader may have excellent personal security habits, while a spouse, child, parent or personal assistant approaches technology differently. An attacker interested in reaching one individual can therefore look at the wider circle around that person. For business leaders and other high-profile individuals, personal cybersecurity increasingly means understanding this entire digital ecosystem.
Where corporate cybersecurity stops, personal risk begins
There is a curious imbalance in the way many executives are protected. At work, their digital environment is managed by a professional security team. Their laptop is monitored, corporate email is protected and suspicious activity can be detected. Security policies determine which applications and devices can be used.
At home, almost none of that applies. The same executive uses a personal laptop, stores important documents in a private cloud and communicates through a personal email address. These accounts and devices rarely receive the same level of attention as their corporate equivalents.
One case encountered by Cyberwolf involved a former prime minister whose personal email address was publicly visible on LinkedIn. Information from previous data breaches showed that the same password had been reused for years with minor variations. This made the personal mailbox relatively easy to access. The consequences were particularly significant because the former prime minister preferred using a personal laptop rather than a government-managed device. Sensitive documents had been forwarded to a personal email account and were being accessed from a device outside the government’s security environment.
Attackers look for the easiest route in. Often it sits outside the organisation altogether.
How does AI change personal cybersecurity risks?
Artificial intelligence allows cybercriminals to create more convincing impersonations, making fraudulent requests harder to recognise. In 2024, an employee in Hong Kong transferred approximately $25 million after joining a video call that appeared to include the company’s chief financial officer and several colleagues. The people on the screen were deepfakes. Their appearance and voices had been digitally recreated to make the request credible.
For families and individuals, simple verification habits can still be remarkably effective, even against sophisticated technology.
- Agree on a safe word for unusual situations.
- Verify any request involving money or sensitive information by calling the person back on a known number.
- Check an unexpected message through a second communication channel.
These small agreements create an additional layer of protection without adding much friction to everyday life.
How can you improve your personal cybersecurity?
Personal cybersecurity becomes much easier to manage once you know what needs protecting.
01Understand your exposure
Search for your own name online and go beyond the first page of results. Look for forgotten accounts, old documents and personal information that no longer needs to be publicly available. Identify the email accounts, devices and cloud services that contain your most sensitive information.
02Secure your immediate digital environment
Enable multi-factor authentication on important accounts and use a password manager. Consider who else has access to information or systems that matter to you, including family members or a personal assistant. Agree how unusual requests should be verified.
03Prepare for the day something looks wrong
Know who you call and how you will reach them. Good security also provides visibility into suspicious activity, making it possible to understand what happened and respond effectively.
Not sure where to start? A quiet conversation with us can help you see where your own protection is worth strengthening.
Personal cybersecurity should fit around your life
Personal cybersecurity should allow people to use technology with confidence. Business leaders need to work. Families want to share their lives online. Effective protection should fit naturally around the way they live.
For people whose visibility, professional responsibilities or access to valuable information make them attractive targets, this means looking beyond individual devices or accounts. Their personal digital environment deserves the same considered approach to security that they already expect in their professional lives.
Strong personal cybersecurity works quietly in the background. It gives you the confidence to live and work online without having to think about security at every turn.
