For Houston CPA and tax firms, independent insurance agencies, registered investment advisors, and title and real-estate law firms. The controls that stop a fraudulent wire are the same ones your cyber insurer now asks about, handled through managed IT and FTC Safeguards compliance. On-site where it is needed, remote where it is not.
Houston is the largest professional-services market in Texas, with financial offices spread across all of it: accounting and advisory firms around Greenway Plaza and the Galleria, independent insurance agencies along the energy corridor and in Westchase, registered investment advisors downtown and in Uptown, and title and real-estate law firms moving with one of the most active property markets in the country.
Almost all of these offices are financial institutions under the FTC Safeguards Rule, which requires a written information security program with no small-firm exemption. See FTC Safeguards for what the rule covers.
Title and real-estate law firms move large sums by wire on a known schedule, which makes them a direct target for business-email-compromise fraud. Multi-factor authentication, access controls, and staff training are what stop a fraudulent wire.
I am based in Houston and work across the metro, inside the Loop and out along Beltway 8 and the Grand Parkway. Most work is handled remotely, with on-site visits when the office environment calls for it.
Every engagement starts with the free 14-Point Safeguards Gap Report. It reviews where your client data lives, what controls are in place today, and where the gaps sit relative to what the written program must contain.
You receive a written findings report with a prioritized fix list. It is a gap report and a plan, not a certification or a guarantee of compliance, and you get the same findings whether or not you continue with managed IT.
If your office is elsewhere in the metro, the same work is available on the dedicated service-area pages.