Financial Advisors & Insurance Agents: Your Personal Bank Account Could Be the Next Target of Hackers

In a profession where trust is essential, a hack of your personal or business account can devastate your finances and your credibility.

About two weeks ago, I heard from another CFP whose personal bank account was hit.

I know other financial advisors and insurance agents who have had their personal or business bank accounts attacked.

You do everything right. You exercise every precaution and still your account can be hacked by criminals.

Unfortunately, financial advisors and insurance agents—who safeguard others’ financial futures—are increasingly being targeted by cyber-criminals.

A few months ago, it happened to me.

Here are a few real-world cases. None of these are my clients:

📌 Case 1: Beverly Hills, CA – A top-producing life insurance agent had her checking and savings accounts drained of over $42,000 in less than 24 hours. Hackers accessed her mobile banking through a cloned SIM card and bypassed two-factor authentication.

By the way, I recently learned that cyber-criminals can now hack voice recognition systems used for financial accounts, and they are increasingly employing AI-powered voice cloning or deepfakes to do so. All that they need is a sample of your voice from a phone call, social media post, YouTube video or any other source.

📌 Case 2: Dallas, TX – A financial advisor’s identity was stolen leading to fraudulent wire transfers from his personal and business accounts totaling $95,000. The criminals had been watching his emails for months.

📌 Case 3: Tampa, FL – A wealth manager’s Venmo and PayPal accounts were compromised after a phishing attack disguised as a client request. Over $8,000 was funneled out in minutes.

Why You’re a Prime Target:

You manage high-net-worth conversations. You use digital tools and cloud-based CRMs. You handle sensitive client information.

Your files, hard drive, SSD, website and cloud based storage contain a gold mine of client data, names, email addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, financial accounts and information on stocks, bonds, cash-value life insurance policies and more.

You often work from home networks and sometimes work on public Wi-Fi (at hotels, airports, stores, restaurants, etc.).

Think you're not vulnerable? Think again.

Recently life insurance and annuity giant Allianz revealed that almost all of their 1.3 million US customers had their account data stolen in a hack. Allianz has teams of experts dedicated to protecting client data and they were hacked.

Massive hacks have led to the theft of the personal data of millions of customers and clients of big supposedly well-protected firms such as United Health and T-Mobile.

A few months ago, one of my accounts was attacked.

A customer of BMO Bank, a convicted felon who was sentenced to four years in prison used a stolen and forged check to steal money from one of my accounts.

Think you're safe because you don't use checks? Hackers can steal money with ACH transfers and fake wire transfers.

When I posted this, well-known RIA attorney Richard Chen commented that this is a reminder that financial advisors need to get cyber-liability insurance.

Financial advisors, take every precaution and put in place every safeguard you can. The confidential client data and financial information you possess is what every cyber criminal wants.

Everyone needs to worry about having their bank accounts and financial accounts hacked. However, as financial advisors and insurance agents, you have the added worry of having your client's most sensitive and valuable financial data stolen. That could be devastating not just to you personally but to your business.

Take every possible step to protect yourself now while this is still fresh in your mind.

You have no idea how devastating this can be until it happens to you.