Your Clients Trust You With Their Financial Lives. Are You Protecting Their Data Like It?

Registered Investment Advisers (RIAs), financial advisors, and wealth management firms hold the most sensitive financial information their clients possess. A single data breach does not just trigger regulatory consequences under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation S-P and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). It can permanently damage the client trust your entire practice is built on. Exceed Cybersecurity helps financial firms build the documented security programs that protect both.

See what compliance actually requires for your firm

Your Clients Trust You With Their Financial Lives. Are You Protecting Their Data Like It?

See what compliance actually requires for your firm

Registered Investment Advisers (RIAs), financial advisors, and wealth management firms hold the most sensitive financial information their clients possess. A single data breach does not just trigger regulatory consequences under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation S-P and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). It can permanently damage the client trust your entire practice is built on. Exceed Cybersecurity helps financial firms build the documented security programs that protect both.

Compliance Expertise and Security Depth,

Compliance Expertise and Security Depth,

Purpose-Built for Financial Firms.

Purpose-Built for Financial Firms.

Financial firms operate under some of the most demanding data protection expectations of any industry. Exceed Cybersecurity brings together regulatory compliance knowledge and hands-on security expertise in a single engagement, helping Registered Investment Advisers (RIAs), financial advisors, and wealth management firms build documented programs that satisfy regulators and genuinely protect client data.

Brian Guenther, CISSP, CCA, CCNA, MCSE

Certified Information Systems Security Professional | CMMC Certified Assessor | Cisco Certified Network Associate | Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer

25+ years of cybersecurity and compliance experience, with deep expertise in network architecture, infrastructure design, and the technical foundations that compliant security programs are built on.

Timothy Marley, CISSP, CISA, CISM, CPA, CFE, CCA (Pending)

Certified Information Systems Security Professional | Certified Information Systems Auditor | Certified Information Security Manager | Certified Public Accountant | Certified Fraud Examiner | CMMC Certified Assessor (exam passed, background verification in progress)

30+ years of cybersecurity, compliance, and audit experience.

We Understand Financial Sector Regulation.

From the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation S-P to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), financial firms face overlapping federal requirements that continue to grow more demanding. We understand what these regulations require and how examiners evaluate compliance.

A CPA and Auditor’s Perspective on Your Program.

Our team includes a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), which means we approach your compliance program with the same rigor and documentation discipline that financial firms already apply to their own work. That perspective matters when your program has to hold up to regulatory scrutiny.

Security That Flexes to Your Firm.

Whether you are a small firm relying on an outside IT provider or a growing firm with more sophisticated systems, we meet you where you are. Exceed Cybersecurity can build your compliance program, address the security gaps we find, and work alongside your existing IT resources rather than replacing them.

The Regulatory Bar Is High, and It Keeps Rising.

The Regulatory Bar Is High, and It Keeps Rising.

Financial firms are entrusted with the most sensitive financial information their clients hold. Federal regulators expect that information to be protected by a documented, risk-based security program, and the standards have grown significantly more demanding in recent years. Whether you manage a handful of client relationships or several hundred, these obligations apply to your firm.

What Your Firm Is Actually Holding

What Your Firm Is Actually Holding

When regulators refer to nonpublic personal information (NPI), they mean the specific client data your firm collects and manages every day, including:

  • Full legal names, home addresses, and dates of birth
  • Social Security numbers and taxpayer identification numbers
  • Bank account, brokerage account, and routing information
  • Investment holdings, account balances, and transaction history
  • Income, net worth, and financial planning details
  • Copies of tax returns and estate planning documents

This is the financial core of your clients’ lives. Protecting it with a documented, compliant security program is both a regulatory requirement and the foundation of the fiduciary trust your firm is built on.

SEC Regulation S-P

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation S-P governs how registered firms protect client information. Recent amendments significantly strengthened the rule, adding explicit requirements for a written incident response program and, importantly, an obligation to notify affected individuals when their sensitive information is compromised. Firms that have not updated their programs to reflect these amendments are likely out of step with current requirements.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) requires financial institutions, including RIAs and advisory firms, to protect the security and confidentiality of client nonpublic personal information (NPI). This includes maintaining a documented information security program with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards appropriate to your firm’s size and complexity.

SEC Examination Expectations

Cybersecurity has become a recurring focus of SEC examinations. Examiners increasingly expect firms to demonstrate a documented risk assessment, written policies and procedures, access controls, vendor oversight, and an incident response plan. The absence of these is a frequent examination finding, and a documented program is your best position going into any examination.

Vendor and Third-Party Oversight

Your firm’s regulatory obligations extend to the third-party providers that handle client data on your behalf, including your custodian, your portfolio management software, your CRM, and your IT provider. Regulators expect you to assess and oversee the cybersecurity practices of these vendors, and a breach originating with a vendor does not shift the responsibility away from your firm.

A Documented Program, Built to Hold Up Under Scrutiny.

A Documented Program, Built to Hold Up Under Scrutiny.

Financial firms do not need to overhaul their operations to become compliant. They need a documented, defensible security program grounded in a real risk assessment, and a partner who can address the gaps that assessment reveals. Exceed Cybersecurity delivers exactly that, in a way that fits the size and sophistication of your firm.

Step 1 — Compliance Discovery Call

Every engagement begins with a conversation about your firm, your regulatory profile, your current technology environment, and your existing IT relationships. We start with your specific situation, not a generic template.

Step 2 — Risk Assessment

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation S-P and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) both expect a documented risk assessment as the foundation of your security program. We assess your actual environment, identifying where nonpublic personal information (NPI) lives, how it flows, who can access it, and where your gaps are. In practice, this is where real exposure comes to light: client data sitting unencrypted on laptops or in shared drives, missing or inconsistent multi-factor authentication (MFA) on email and custodial platforms, former employees whose access was never fully revoked, unmanaged personal devices connecting to firm data, weak or reused credentials, unpatched systems, cloud applications no one is actively monitoring, and third-party vendors handling client data with no oversight in place. These are the gaps that lead to breaches and examination findings, and most firms have no idea how many of them exist until a structured assessment surfaces them.

Step 3 — Program Development

Based on the risk assessment, we build your documented information security program, including the written policies, procedures, access controls, and incident response plan that regulators expect. This is the core program that satisfies your Reg S-P and GLBA obligations and positions you well for any SEC examination.

Step 4 — Gap Remediation and Managed Security Services

A documented program still needs implemented security controls behind it. Once we identify the technical gaps your risk assessment reveals, Exceed Cybersecurity can deliver and co-manage the security infrastructure needed to close them. For firms with an existing IT provider, we work alongside them, adding the specialized security and compliance layer that generalist IT support does not typically provide.

Step 5 — Ongoing Compliance Maintenance

Regulations evolve, your firm grows, and examiners’ expectations rise. Exceed Cybersecurity provides ongoing compliance monitoring, periodic risk assessment updates, and continuous managed security services to keep your program current, defensible, and examination-ready.

Common Misconceptions That Leave Financial Firms Exposed

Common Misconceptions That Leave Financial Firms Exposed

Your custodian secures its own systems and the assets it holds, but it does not secure your firm’s environment. The client data on your laptops, in your email, in your CRM, and in your planning software is your responsibility. Regulators hold your firm accountable for protecting the nonpublic personal information (NPI) in your possession, regardless of how strong your custodian’s security is.

Firm size offers no exemption from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation S-P or the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), and it offers no protection from attackers. Smaller firms are frequently targeted precisely because their defenses tend to be weaker, and SEC examinations reach firms of every size. The obligation to protect client data applies whether you manage ten client relationships or a thousand.

A binder of policies that does not reflect what your firm actually does is not a compliance program. Regulators expect your written policies to be grounded in a real risk assessment, actively followed, and supported by implemented technical controls. Policies that exist only on paper, disconnected from your day-to-day practices, are a common and serious examination finding.

For a financial firm, cybersecurity is both. The technical controls matter, but so do the documented risk assessment, written policies, incident response plan, employee training, and vendor oversight that regulators specifically require. Treating cybersecurity purely as an IT function leaves the compliance and governance side of the equation unaddressed, which is exactly where examiners focus.

A clean history is not evidence of a secure firm, and it is important to distinguish a compromise from a breach. A compromise is when an attacker gains unauthorized access to your systems. A breach is the confirmed exposure or theft of client data, which is what triggers notification obligations under the updated Regulation S-P. A compromise almost always comes first and can go undetected for months. Without active monitoring, your firm may already be compromised and have no way of knowing. A real security program reduces the chance of a compromise, catches intrusions before they become breaches, and limits the damage if one occurs.

Not Sure Whether Your Firm Would Pass an Examination? Find Out.

Not Sure Whether Your Firm Would Pass an Examination? Find Out.

Most firm principals are not certain where they stand against the current Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation S-P and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) requirements. Our free Financial Firm Cybersecurity Compliance Checklist walks you through the essentials, so you can quickly see where your firm is covered and where the gaps are before an examiner does.

Financial Firms That Took Compliance Seriously

Financial Firms That Took Compliance Seriously

★★★★★  5-Star Rated on Google  |  41 Reviews

“With the SEC paying more attention to cybersecurity every year, I wanted to know we could stand up to an examination. Exceed Cybersecurity built us a documented program that actually reflects how we operate, not a binder that sits on a shelf. Everything was organized, defensible, and done right. I am no longer worried about what an examiner might ask to see.”

“President, Financial Advisory Firm, Mid-Atlantic”

Every financial firm we work with gets the same thing: a documented, defensible compliance program and a security partner that keeps their client data protected and their firm ready for whatever an examiner asks to see.

The First Step Is a Conversation. Schedule Your Free Compliance Discovery Call Below.

The First Step Is a Conversation. Schedule Your Free Compliance Discovery Call Below.

Schedule a free 30-minute Compliance Discovery Call with Exceed Cybersecurity. We will learn about your firm, review your current situation, and give you a clear, honest picture of where you stand against your SEC and GLBA obligations, and what it would take to close any gaps. No sales pressure. No obligation. Just straight answers from a team that understands both compliance and security at a level most IT providers cannot match.