Your equipment will not save you without a strategy.
People often start with the wrong question: “Which alarm should I install?”
The right question is rather: who might take an interest in you, for what purpose, and how?
In our assignments, we always come back to one simple reality. Behind an executive, there is almost always a family. And when someone wants to reach a business owner, they do not necessarily go through them. They go through the easiest point: a spouse, a child, a routine, an address found online.
Organising an executive's security is therefore not about buying equipment. It is about putting a four-step method in place.
Why executives have become targets
An executive is visible: in the press, on LinkedIn, in company registers, at trade shows. Their wealth, real or assumed, attracts attention. Some sectors expose them further, such as finance, sensitive industry or crypto-assets.
Our internal study of assaults on crypto-asset holders in France (11 cases analysed) shows this clearly:
- an average of 4 attackers per victim;
- a firearm brandished in 55% of cases;
- relatives targeted in 45% of situations.
These figures are not about opportunists. They describe organised teams that planned their operation and know that a relative is leverage.
Step 1: know what is known about you
The exposure audit
Taken one by one, these details seem harmless:
- an address found on a public document;
- a recognisable vehicle;
- regular sports schedules;
- the children's school visible in a photo;
- a displayed passion for shooting or hunting, suggesting there are firearms at home.
Put together, they form an exploitable profile. With the data leaks of recent years, cross-referencing this information has become easy for someone motivated.
The exposure audit means putting yourself in an adversary's shoes: what do they find, and what do they deduce from it? It is the foundation of everything else. Without this audit, you are protecting blind.
What to do with the results?
You cannot erase everything, but you can reduce a lot:
- clean up what is published;
- lock down personal accounts;
- raise awareness among relatives, especially teenagers, about what they share;
- avoid publishing in real time the places where you are.
Step 2: protect the home in three layers
The home is where the family is most present and often least vigilant. It is protected on three complementary levels.
Electronics detect
Alarm, cameras, perimeter detection, remote monitoring. Their role is to see and alert as early as possible.
You must know their limits: a camera observes, it stops no one. Remote monitoring has its delays: alert reception, verification, call, possible intervention. This delay must be known and built into the plan.
Hardening delays
Doors, glazing, secondary access points (garage, French windows, basement), safe room. Their role is to buy time between detection and the arrival of help.
The key point is often forgotten: an armoured front door is useless if the terrace French window opens in ten seconds. You harden the weak link, not the façade.
People decide and react
This is the most important layer, and the most neglected. Without known and rehearsed procedures, the alarm sounds and no one knows what to do.
No layer is enough on its own. The system works when the three connect: I detect, I delay, I react.
Step 3: a family protocol everyone knows
Simple, short, rehearsed
Under stress, you do not think — you do what you have rehearsed. The protocol must answer a few questions:
- Who calls emergency services, and with which phone?
- Who gathers the children?
- Where is the safe room, and how do you get there at night?
- What is the family code word to signal danger without alerting an intruder?
- What do you do if someone is away, or if plan A fails?
Train, for real
A protocol that has never been tested is a hypothesis, not a protection. Train by day and by night, with different scenarios. After each exercise, note what went wrong and correct it.
Adapt to each family member
A 6-year-old, a teenager and a spouse who travels a lot do not have the same needs. The protocol must be understandable by each, at their level, without creating anxiety.
Step 4: stay discreet every day
Discretion protects better than display
A good system does not turn the house into a bunker and does not spoil family life. Displaying your protection sometimes attracts more attention than it deters. Being less visible often achieves more.
Habits that change everything
- Vary your routes and schedules when possible.
- Pay attention to unusual or overly targeted approaches.
- Keep public communication professional, with no details about private life.
The most frequent mistakes
- 1.Buying before analysing. Equipment comes after the scenario, never before.
- 2.Protecting the executive and forgetting the family.
- 3.Believing that remote monitoring intervenes immediately.
- 4.Never testing the protocol.
- 5.Putting in place a system so restrictive that the family ends up bypassing it.
What to remember
Your equipment will not save you without a strategy. The order is always the same: analyse the exposure, understand the threat, build the layers of protection, train the family. Equipment comes after.
FAQ
Where to start when securing your family as an executive?
With an exposure audit: identify what an adversary can know about you and your relatives, then build the system from there.
Are an alarm and cameras enough?
No. They detect, but stop no one. You also need to delay an intrusion (hardening) and know how to react (rehearsed procedures).
Should children be involved?
Yes, at their level. A simple, rehearsed protocol, presented without dramatising, makes them actors in their own security.
Should protection be visible?
Not necessarily. Discretion often reduces risk more than an ostentatious system.
