Do You Need a Personal Cybersecurity Concierge?

Many wealthy and prominent people hire security professionals to guard their physical safety. Now, some are hiring digital bodyguards to keep themselves safe online.

As concerns about cyberattacks grow, some companies have started offering personal cybersecurity concierge services to help well-off or high-profile individuals assess, monitor and ward off digital threats such as financial fraud, identity theft and reputational damage. These concierge firms promise more comprehensive and tailored protection than the typical antivirus or identity-theft product.

Their offerings often include personalized security assessments, data scrubbing, monitoring of a client’s digital footprint and full-time access to a dedicated team of security professionals—for a hefty fee, of course.

The price tag for these services can run from about $1,000 a year to tens of thousands of dollars annually, depending on the provider and the services offered. Providers tend to focus on people with assets of at least $5 million. The typical client has a large digital footprint, high public visibility or assets that are likely to attract targeted attacks.

Some of the protection personal concierges offer “can be replicated at a lower cost with the right mix of tools and trusted technical expertise,” says Ensar Seker, chief information security officer at SOCRadar, a Newark, Del., cybersecurity-threat intelligence company. But for those who don’t have the time, desire or technical expertise to focus on cyber hygiene, an all-in-one solution with a personal touch might be preferable.

“From my perspective, cybersecurity concierge services can be worth the cost for certain high-net-worth individuals, but their value is highly situational,” says Seker, whose firm doesn’t provide such offerings. “The personalized, proactive nature of these services can provide peace of mind and risk reduction that off-the-shelf solutions can’t match.”

Hacking victims’ interest

Many of the people using or inquiring about cybersecurity concierge services have been victims of a breach already. One provider, BlackCloak, says that 39% of its clients were hacked before engaging the firm’s services, which include privacy monitoring, cybersecurity protection and home-network analysis.

While some people find personal cybersecurity concierges on their own, others are referred by wealth managers, sports agencies, investment firms and celebrity business-management companies.

“Seven to 10 years ago, nobody was asking the question of ‘Hey, do you offer or know anyone who can help us with cybersecurity?’ ” says Alan Bazaar, co-chairman and chief executive at Hollow Brook Wealth Management in Katonah, N.Y. More recently, “it became very obvious to us that there was a need,” says Bazaar, whose firm refers clients to BlackCloak but doesn’t receive compensation for doing so.

Grace Yoon, head of strategic partnerships and community impact at Rockefeller Capital Management in New York, says her firm also has observed a significant increase in client requests for cyber-related services. The firm is receiving questions at about three times the rate of three years ago, she says. Rockefeller refers clients to concierge provider CyberWA, but doesn’t receive compensation for doing so.

Cybersecurity is “what keeps clients up at night,” Yoon says. “Clients have a lot of questions about ways to protect themselves.”

Things to consider

The services provided by cybersecurity concierges can vary. A premium package at Concierge Cyber may include monitoring a person’s online presence, reporting social-media threats, monthly removal of personal information found online and a detailed assessment and subsequent monitoring of anything online that could cause reputational harm, says Kurtis Suhs, founder and chief executive of the Atlanta-based firm. The company also provides proactive monitoring of physical threats. These and other services run around $50,000 for an annual premium subscription.

“People have no idea how big their footprint is,” says Suhs.

CyberWA, meanwhile, has an entry-level package for $995 a year, which includes five hours of consulting, along with personal-data removal and breach notification. The premium package, which can run tens of thousands of dollars a year, includes an initial meeting with the customer online or in person, a personalized cyber-hygiene assessment, a digital-footprint analysis, recommendations for improvement, and monitoring of social media and the dark web.

People interested in these services should consider their risk profile and their budget, says A.J. Nash, chief executive of Unspoken Security in Minneapolis, which consults with businesses on intelligence and security matters. How wealthy are you? Are you well-known? Are you controversial? Do you have a social-media presence? Do you have a family you’re concerned about protecting? How much do you stand to lose in the case of a cyber threat, personally or professionally?

“It’s not just net worth, it’s not just fame, it’s not just controversy. It’s a combination of all those things,” Nash says.

Cheryl Winokur Munk is a writer in New Jersey. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.