Founded by Gary Evee, a veteran of IBM’s cybersecurity business unit, Aprivé promises to apply enterprise-grade security standards to its clients’ home networks and personal devices. “If you are an executive inside of an organization,” said Evee, “you should have the same level of protection in your personal digital life.”
Corporations hire experts to secure their networks, and it can take months for criminals to find a way in. But hacking a wealthy person’s home network can be child’s play. CEOs and celebrities are rarely security experts. They often use the same consumer-grade hardware and software as the rest of us, and make the same mistakes when setting it up — failing to change the factory default password on a network router, for instance, or using the same password for all their personal accounts.
Once inside the executive’s home network, bad guys can compromise any connected computer. They can steal corporate data mixed in with personal emails, or collect embarrassing information in a bid to extort hush money.
“If you are someone whose name carries weight, you’ve got to believe that you’re going to be targeted, whether it be nation-state actors or those that are looking to do reputational harm or financial harm,” said Evee.
For instance, Russian agents broke into the personal Gmail account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign director John Podesta during the 2016 presidential race. The attack gave them access to thousands of secret Democratic Party emails, undermining the Clinton campaign and perhaps playing a part in Donald Trump’s victory.
No wonder there’s a growing market for companies that offer bespoke cybersecurity services for high-risk clients.
Chris Pierson, a Boston College graduate whose Florida company BlackCloak is a pioneer in the field, calls it “digital executive protection.”
“These corporate executives face higher risk because of who they are,” said Pierson, BlackCloak’s chief executive. “They need it because their personal and professional lives are inextricably intertwined.”
BlackCloak, founded in 2018, charges around $10,000 a year to remotely manage every aspect of digital home security for high-risk households. The company claims it has thousands of customers.
Aprivé, which launched just a couple of weeks ago, offers similar services for half the price. It’s still far out of reach for most households, but might be a bargain for the corporations that purchase the service for their key execs.
First comes a thorough examination of the home network and all connected devices, to make sure they’re properly configured for high security. Then, the network and devices are monitored around the clock, and the concierge will respond to any security alerts.
Evee said Aprivé has signed up about two-dozen clients, all of them confidential. Evee said that they include corporate chiefs, pharma company executives, and heads of wealth management companies.
The company is preparing to raise a seed funding round. For now, it’s running on about $500,000 raised from individual investors, including Corey Thomas, chief of Boston cybersecurity firm Rapid7.
“We know when we look at security incidents that [hackers] are going after both key data, but also key individuals,” Thomas said. “I get to see firsthand how executives at different companies are being targeted … and so it just looked like a good investment.”
The average consumer who can’t afford Aprivé is far from defenseless. Most attacks use relatively crude techniques, including deceptive voice phone calls and emails which trick people into letting the bad guys in.
“Ninety percent of breaches happen because of people,” said Evee. We can all protect ourselves by keeping our anti-malware programs up to date and being careful about which links to click and which emails to answer.
But high-profile targets are under constant attack by hardcore crooks with plenty of time on their hands and ever-new methods of deception.
For such people, Aprivé’s $5,000-a-year fee could be worth it.
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Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeTechLab.
