In this age of cybercrime, an advisory firm’s greatest vulnerability lies not in the wires and waves that carry information between computers and the internet—but in the advisors and support personnel staffing those computers.
Some of the most serious hacks in history occurred not because of a failure of technology, but old-fashioned human weakness, John Sileo of The Sileo Group, a cybersecurity consultant who has himself been in a victim of identity theft, said during a presentation to advisors at the Investments and Wealth Institutes’ 2019 Annual Conference Experience on Monday in Las Vegas.
“I have learned through experience what brain scientists have learned over and over again: that knowledge alone, our awareness of these threats, does not create the change,” said Sileo. “Only our emotions do. Our personal connection to how this is relevant to the most important pieces of our lives.”
Sileo became a cybersecurity consultant because he was a victim of cybercriminals himself. As a young parent, he shifted from a career in consulting to running his family’s business—a computer company his parents had founded as a television repair shop. He hired a hard-working good friend, Doug, who was a “coding genius.”
The pair transitioned the business from computers to software development, creating web-based accounting software. Sileo felt he could trust Doug with the business, and in turn was able to spend more time with his family.
In Sileo’s case, he was his own vulnerability. He threw out copies of mortgage documents without shredding them, and they were found by dumpster-diving identity thieves.
“In my case, a woman purchased my stolen identity off the internet and used it to buy her first home in Boca Raton, Fla.,” said Sileo.
The woman eventually defaulted on the loan, drained Sileo’s bank accounts and declared bankruptcy using his identity, draining his life savings. “I was escorted out of the bank by security for crimes [she] committed in my name.”
A few years later, an FBI agent unit knocked on Sileo’s door. Sileo’s instant assumption was that they had captured his identity thief and he was going to get his life back.
Instead, the agent handed him a subpoena and explained that he was going to jail for embezzling $298,000 from his customers. He was facing 10 years of imprisonment.