John O’Connell Interviewed by Wealth Management

John O’Connell was recently interviewed by Wealth Management about Cybersecurity adoption among RIAs. Adoption has remained low, and the reason isn’t awareness, most firms have outsourced IT and assumed that covers cybersecurity, when in reality it’s a distinct, multi-part discipline spanning employee training, endpoint security, email security, cloud security, and field hygiene for traveling advisors, and firms typically have coverage on one or two of these at most. Regulators are also shifting the bar from recommended practice to evidence-based requirement, meaning a written information security policy sitting in a drawer won’t hold up, firms need documented proof the policy is actively being followed. John’s advice is to first audit whether your current IT provider actually has the specialized skill set to run a comprehensive cyber program, get educated on the full scope of the problem before engaging anyone, and then build an evidence-based approach so that gaps are identified and addressed deliberately rather than assumed away.