Without fail, every single day—like clockwork—I get a handful of emails trying to pry their way into my digital life. Sometimes it’s an alleged Amazon receipt I never made, sometimes a fake Dropbox notice, and sometimes it’s a desperate attempt to convince me I’ve inherited a fortune from an uncle I never knew existed. Spoiler: I haven’t. But behind these phishing attempts is a more serious truth—someone, somewhere is working full-time to breach your security. And in our industry, that’s not just annoying—it’s dangerous.
As a retirement plan provider, you’re not just protecting your own business; you’re holding the keys to someone else’s future. Their savings, their financial security, their dignity in old age—it all lives behind the digital gates we’ve built. And if those gates fall, don’t think for a second you won’t be held accountable. ERISA doesn’t shrug its shoulders when a cyber thief makes off with participant data or, worse, actual plan assets.
It’s not enough to rely on two-factor authentication and hope for the best. Hope is not a cybersecurity strategy. What you need is a real process—a living, breathing, regularly updated system that anticipates attacks, not just reacts to them. That means working with cybersecurity professionals who understand the unique regulatory environment of retirement plans. These aren’t just IT people who reset your password when you lock yourself out of Outlook. These are specialists who know how to defend access points, monitor behavior anomalies, and close off vulnerabilities before they become disasters.
Your clients won’t care that it was a Russian bot or a kid in a basement. If their accounts get drained, you’ll be the one answering for it. And frankly, you should be. As a fiduciary—or even just a service provider—you have a duty to prevent that kind of failure. And if you’re not taking that duty seriously, you shouldn’t be in this business.
Cybersecurity isn’t a compliance box you check off once a year. It’s an ongoing investment in your reputation, your relationships, and your responsibility to the people who trust you with their livelihoods. The risks are real, and the stakes are too high to wing it.
Take the threat seriously, build a defense, and remember: in the retirement plan world, silence from a hacker doesn’t mean safety—it usually just means they haven’t gotten in yet.
