Family Office High Net Worth Individuals Security Culture

Posted On:Oct 18, 2026
Posted By:Michael Braun

Family office high net worth individuals security is a household habit

Family office high net worth individuals security rarely fails because a family could not afford the right equipment. It fails because, at the moment it mattered, somebody in the household did not know what to do, did not do what they knew, or assumed someone else had done it. Three home invasions reported in the first half of October 2026 make that point more clearly than any checklist I could write.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, October 14, four armed robbers entered a mansion in the Pinheiros area of São Paulo belonging to the Matsunaga family. According to g1, the owners and their granddaughter were not at home. Three employees were. They were locked in a room until military police arrived, detained one suspect on the ground floor and then exchanged fire with three others. Three suspects died and one police officer was shot in the shoulder.

A week earlier, in Limassol, Cyprus, five hooded men armed with knives and a gun climbed into a house through an unsecured window at around 3 a.m., AlphaNews.Live reported on October 8. They tied up and gagged a 43-year-old man, ordered his 36-year-old partner to open the safe, took €5,000 in cash and jewelry valued at about €200,000, taped her up and left. Police were only told in the morning, after the couple freed themselves.

And in the early hours of Tuesday, October 13, three men broke the main door locks of a two-storey bungalow in Talawade, near Pune, India. The Times of India reported that they gagged and tied up a 60-year-old woman asleep on the first floor, beat her, threatened her with a knife and took gold jewelry and valuables worth Rs53.70 lakh. Her son’s family was asleep downstairs. Police said there were no CCTV cameras on the premises and suspect the house had been watched beforehand.

This article supports the household culture section of our 2026 guide to high net worth security. In the guide, I describe security culture in a few paragraphs. Here I want to turn it into something a family and a family office can actually build: the routines, roles, training and conversations that make a household harder to attack and safer when someone gets in anyway.

House manager and residential security officer check that a glass terrace door is locked during an estate night routine

Key takeaways

Security culture is what the household does without being reminded: locking the last door, setting the alarm, questioning the unexpected visitor, reporting the car that has been parked outside for two days.
Staff are often the people in the house when it is attacked. In São Paulo the owners were away and three employees were there. They need training, a plan and the authority to act.
Night routines matter. The Limassol intruders reportedly came in through an unsecured window at 3 a.m. One person should own the check that every door and window is closed.
Cameras are part of culture too. In Talawade there were no cameras on the property, and police had to rely on neighbors’ footage. A family that does not watch its own perimeter leaves that work to strangers.
A household should rehearse what to do if intruders get in, including where to go, what to say and what to give up without argument.
The family office should own the culture across every home and every employee, with short written routines, regular drills and a way to report concerns without being blamed.
Professional teams should strengthen the household’s habits, not replace them.

Three home invasions in one week

I want to set out what is publicly known about each case before drawing lessons. None of these households was a client of ours, and I am not going to speculate about what the people involved did or did not do beyond what has been reported.

São Paulo: the staff were the ones at home

According to g1’s report on October 15, four robbers entered the Matsunaga family’s mansion in Pinheiros, in the west of São Paulo, on the afternoon of October 14. According to g1’s sources, the property belongs to the older generation of the family, and the report says neither the owners nor their granddaughter were home at the time.

When military police arrived, they detained one suspect on the ground floor, according to the state public security department as quoted by g1. Three employees who had been locked inside a room were rescued. Officers then found three more suspects and there was an exchange of fire. Two suspects died at the scene and a third died after being taken to an emergency care unit. A military police officer was hit in the shoulder and taken to hospital. Weapons were seized. A 39-year-old man was arrested in the act, and the case was registered as residential robbery at the 14th police district in Pinheiros, with support from the homicide and personal protection department. The military police also opened an internal inquiry into the officers’ actions.

The public reports do not say how the robbers got in or how police were alerted, and I am not going to guess. What is clear is that the people in the house when it was attacked were employees, not family members.

Limassol: an unsecured window at 3 a.m.

The Limassol robbery, as described by AlphaNews.Live, happened around 3 a.m. while a foreign couple was asleep. Five hooded men got in through a window that had not been secured. Armed with knives and a gun, they tied up and gagged the man, ordered the woman to open the safe, took cash and jewelry, then bound her with duct tape and left. The couple freed themselves, and police were notified on Thursday morning.

The report does not say whether the house had an alarm, cameras or anyone else living there. What it does say is that the way in was a window that should have been closed and locked.

Talawade: no cameras and a suspected watch on the house

The Times of India report quotes the senior inspector of the Chikhali police. The woman lives on the first floor of a two-storey bungalow; her son, his wife and their family live on the ground floor. The family owns several land parcels in the area that are rented out. Around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, three men broke the locks of the main door and came in. One sat on her while she slept and gagged her with a sari while the others tied her hands and feet. They beat her and threatened her with a knife, and took 680 grams of gold jewelry, cash, silver, a phone and a wristwatch.

After they left, she freed herself and woke her son and daughter-in-law. The inspector said there were no CCTV cameras on the bungalow premises, that police had obtained footage from neighboring buildings, and that police suspect the men may have carried out a recce before the robbery. A case was registered for robbery with an attempt to cause death or grievous hurt, wrongful restraint and house-trespass.

What a security culture actually is

I use the phrase “security culture” carefully, because it is easy for it to become a slogan. In a household, I mean something specific: the set of habits, expectations and responsibilities that everyone in the house, family and staff alike, follows as a matter of routine, without needing a security officer standing over them.

A household with a strong security culture has a few recognizable features. People lock doors and windows without thinking about it. Someone specific checks them at night. The alarm is set when the house is empty and at bedtime, every time. Visitors are expected and verified, and staff feel entitled to say “please wait while I check” to a stranger. Odd things get mentioned, such as the unknown car, the unexpected phone call asking who is home, or the delivery driver who asks too many questions. Everyone knows what to do if something goes wrong, because they have talked about it and walked through it.

A household with a weak security culture can have exactly the same equipment and still be wide open. The alarm is only set when the family travels. Windows are left open for the dogs. Gate codes are shared with every contractor and never changed. Staff have never been told what to do if someone forces their way in. The family assumes the security company handles all of that.

Equipment and professional protection still matter enormously. But they work through the household, not around it. A residential officer cannot lock a window in a bedroom they are not permitted to enter. A camera cannot record an intruder if the system was turned off because it kept beeping. A safe room cannot protect someone who does not know where it is.

That is why I treat culture as a protective layer in its own right, and why I write it into every residential program we build.

The last door: night routines that someone owns

The Limassol report describes the intruders entering through an unsecured window. The Talawade report describes the main door locks being broken while the household slept. Night is when people are least able to respond, and it is when small lapses, such as a window left open for air or a door that “is usually locked,” turn into the way in.

The simplest change I make in almost every household is to give the night routine an owner. One named person, every night, is responsible for confirming that the house is closed. In a home with a residential security officer, that is part of the officer’s rounds, and they report it. In a home without one, it might be the house manager, a live-in staff member or a member of the family. What matters is that it is one person, that they know it is their job, and that there is a short, fixed list:

All exterior doors closed and locked, including side doors, garage entry doors and doors to terraces and pool areas.
Ground-floor windows and any upper windows reachable from a roof, balcony, tree or trellis closed and locked.
Sliding doors locked and, where fitted, the secondary bar or pin in place.
Gates closed and confirmed latched, not just pushed shut.
Garage doors down and vehicles locked, with no openers or keys left inside cars parked outside.
Alarm set in the appropriate night mode, with perimeter sensors armed.
Exterior lighting on as designed, with no lights out on paths or entries.
Anything unusual from the day noted and passed on.

Households resist this at first because it feels like a chore. In practice it takes a few minutes, and after a couple of weeks it becomes as automatic as turning off the kitchen lights. The real resistance usually comes from the alarm. Families stop setting the night mode because it is inconvenient: someone wants to let the dog out at 2 a.m., or a teenager comes home late and sets it off. The answer is to configure the system to fit the household, with zones for the bedrooms and hallways, a simple way to step out to the garden and clear codes for each person, rather than to give up on it.

Windows deserve a specific word. In warm climates, and in Southern California especially, people sleep with windows open. That is understandable, but an open ground-floor window at 3 a.m. is the same as an unlocked door. If the family wants air at night, the solution is window restrictors that limit opening, secured screens with sensors, or upper-floor windows that are not reachable from outside, not an open window and hope.

Home security for high net worth individuals depends on the people inside

Home security for high net worth individuals is often discussed as hardware: gates, walls, cameras, glass, alarms. The São Paulo case is a reminder that when a house is attacked, the people inside may not be the family at all. They may be a housekeeper, a nanny, a chef, a gardener, a driver waiting for the principal, or a contractor in the middle of a job.

Those people are the household’s first line in a very literal sense. They are the ones who open the gate, answer the intercom, accept deliveries and notice when something is different. They are also the ones who, if a crew forces its way in, will be tied up, locked in a room or used to get to the safe.

I want every member of household staff to understand three things.

First, their safety comes before the family’s property. Nobody on the staff should ever be expected to fight an intruder, refuse to open a safe at gunpoint or protect jewelry with their body. The instruction is to comply, stay calm, observe and survive. Saying this out loud matters, because loyal employees sometimes believe they are expected to resist.

Second, they have authority to slow things down. A staff member who is not sure about a visitor can keep the gate closed and call the house manager or the security team. They will not be criticized for asking. I covered this in depth in our post on home security at the door, including people who pose as police or utility workers.

Third, they are part of the security plan, not observers of it. They know who to call, they know the duress procedure, they know where to go if something happens, and they are included in the drills.

Staff vetting is the foundation for all of this. If you have not done it properly, start there, and read our post on household staff vetting for UHNW families. But vetting tells you who someone was before they joined. Culture determines what they do while they work for you.

What everyone should do if intruders get in

All three October cases involved intruders who got inside while people were there. In each, the victims were restrained. In Limassol and Talawade, they were threatened with weapons. In Limassol, a safe was opened under threat. This is the scenario families least like to talk about, and it is the one they really need to plan for.

I do not teach households to fight. I teach them to survive, to protect the people who are vulnerable, and to help the police afterward. The core guidance is short enough to remember under stress:

If you can get away safely, do it. If there is a safe room or a designated secure area and you can reach it without passing the intruders, go there, lock it and call for help.
If you cannot get away, comply. Do not argue, do not bargain over property and do not make sudden movements. Possessions can be replaced.
Use the duress procedure if you can do so safely. Many alarm systems have a duress code that disarms the panel while silently signaling an emergency. Everyone who might be forced to disarm the system must know it.
Observe. Number of people, height, build, voices, accents, clothing, weapons, what they touch, what they say to each other, how they arrived and left. This is what helps investigators later.
After they leave, call the police first. Then the security contact. Do not touch things they handled. Do not clean up.

The safe deserves a specific conversation. In Limassol, the woman was ordered to open it. Families who keep valuables at home should decide in advance that if anyone is threatened, the safe gets opened. Some families also keep a modest, separate safe or a small amount of cash and jewelry that can be handed over, and keep the items that matter elsewhere. Whatever the arrangement, it should be decided in calm conditions, not improvised with a knife in the room.

Safe rooms change the calculation, because they give people somewhere to go. But a safe room only helps if people know where it is, can get to it quickly from where they sleep, can lock it from inside and can call out from it. Our post on safe room planning for UHNW homes walks through the design. In terms of culture, the point is that every adult in the house, including live-in staff, should have walked to the safe room at night, in the dark, at least once.

Medical readiness belongs here too. The Talawade report describes the woman being beaten. Restraints, blows and the stress of an attack can cause injuries that need immediate care. A household that has a trauma kit, knows where it is and has at least one person trained to use it is better placed to help someone in the minutes before paramedics arrive. Our post on estate medical readiness covers that.

Children, guests and the people who forget the rules

Every household has people who are not part of the daily routine: children, teenagers, grandparents, house guests, partners who stay over, friends of the children, visiting family. They are the ones who leave the side door open, give out the gate code, post photos of the house and let a stranger through the gate because the stranger said they were there to see someone.

I do not expect a ten-year-old to run a perimeter check, but children can learn a few things at the right age. They do not open the front door or the gate to anyone; they get an adult. They do not tell people on the phone who is home. They know the family’s word for “something is wrong, go to the safe place.” They know how to dial emergency services and say the address. Older children can learn the alarm system and the night routine, and they can be taught why the family does not post where they are in real time.

Guests are harder because they are guests. The practical approach is to give them a short, polite briefing when they arrive: how the alarm and the doors work, which doors to keep locked, who to call if they have a problem, and a request not to post photos that show the house or tag its location. People are generally happy to follow simple rules if they are explained once.

Older relatives are often among the more exposed members of a household. In Talawade the victim was a 60-year-old woman asleep on her own floor of the house. Our post on close protection for UHNW families with elderly parents deals with that group in detail, including how to build protection around their routines rather than imposing new ones.

Private security for high net worth family homes: the officer as part of the household

Private security for high net worth family homes works well when the residential officers are integrated into the household’s routines rather than stationed apart from them. I see two failures here. In one, the officers sit in a guard house at the gate and the family barely knows their names, so nobody tells them anything. In the other, the family treats them as extra staff, and they end up carrying shopping and walking dogs instead of watching the property.

The right relationship is somewhere in between. The officers know the household’s rhythms: who lives there, who works there, which deliveries are expected, which vehicles belong. The household knows the officers and is comfortable telling them things, such as an unusual phone call, a stranger at the gate earlier in the day, or a change in plans. The officers have a clear scope that is written down and respected, and they report on the night routine, the alarm status and anything unusual.

Officers can also be the trainers for the household’s culture. They can run the short walk-through with a new housekeeper, check that the night routine was done, and run the quarterly drill. But they cannot do it alone. If the family does not support the routines, or undermines them, by insisting the alarm be turned off or by sharing codes with friends, the officers have no way to fix it. That is why I always want one member of the family, or the family office, to be the sponsor of the security culture inside the home. We describe what a resident officer program looks like in our post on residential security officers for Los Angeles estates.

Codes, keys and the access nobody tracks

Forced entry gets the headlines, but in many households the easier route is access that was given out and never taken back. Over a few years, a busy home accumulates a long tail of people who can get in: former housekeepers, a contractor who finished the kitchen two years ago, the dog walker from before the move, a friend who looked after the house one summer, a nanny who left on bad terms. Gate codes get written on sticky notes for delivery drivers. Spare keys sit under planters. Garage remotes live in cars that are parked on the street.

Culture is what keeps that tail short. I want every household to have a simple access register that answers four questions for each residence: who has a key, who has a code, who has a gate fob or garage remote, and when each was issued. The register should be reviewed whenever someone leaves the household’s employment and at least twice a year in any case.

A few rules make that register meaningful:

Each person gets their own alarm and gate code, so the system log shows who came and went, and a single code can be removed without changing everyone’s.
Codes and access are removed the same day a person stops working at the house, before their last day if the departure is difficult.
Contractors get temporary codes that expire at the end of the job, not the household code.
Physical keys are restricted keys that cannot be copied at a hardware store, and the locks are rekeyed when a key goes missing.
Nobody leaves keys hidden outside the house, and nobody leaves a garage remote in a car parked outside.
Staff know never to share codes with anyone, including other contractors who “just need to get in for a minute.”

The alarm system’s own log is an underused part of this. Many modern panels record which code was used to arm and disarm the system and when. A family office that looks at that log occasionally will notice if a code that should have been removed is still being used, or if the house is being disarmed at hours when nobody should be there.

When the culture slips: learning from near misses

Every household has near misses: the night the side door was left unlocked, the morning the alarm was not set, the stranger who got through the gate behind a delivery van. Usually nothing happens, and the temptation is to move on quickly. I think near misses are the cheapest lessons a household will ever get, and a strong culture treats them that way.

When something slips, I want a short, blame-free review. What happened? Why did it happen: was the routine unclear, was someone covering for a sick colleague, was the alarm too inconvenient, did a family member override the procedure? What change would stop it from happening again? Then the change is made, written into the routine and explained to everyone.

The word blame-free matters. If a housekeeper who admits she forgot to lock the side door is reprimanded, the next person who forgets will simply not mention it. The household then loses the information it needs to improve. Accountability is still important, and repeated failures need to be addressed, but the default response to an honest report should be thanks and a fix.

The family has to model this too. When a family member is the one who overrode the routine, such as by insisting the gate stay open for a party or giving a code to a friend, the review should cover that as well. Staff watch what the family does. If the family treats the routines as optional, the staff will too.

Cameras someone watches: the Talawade lesson

The Chikhali police inspector told the Times of India there were no CCTV cameras on the bungalow premises and that investigators had obtained footage from neighboring establishments. Police also said they suspect the men had watched the house beforehand.

I do not want to overstate what cameras would have done. Three determined men breaking a door at 1:30 a.m. may not have been stopped by a camera on the wall. But two things in that account matter for culture.

The first is reconnaissance. If police are right that the house was watched, then someone spent time near it before the robbery, possibly on more than one occasion. A household that watches its own perimeter, through cameras that someone actually reviews and through people who notice and mention the same car or the same person appearing near the house, has a chance to see that preparation. A household that does not has handed that opportunity to the neighbors, if it exists at all.

The second is detection during the attack. The woman freed herself and woke her family downstairs after the men left. Her son’s family slept through it on the floor below. In a house with interior motion detection on the stairs, a door sensor on the main entrance and a monitored alarm, a forced door at 1:30 a.m. would have woken someone, and possibly brought a response, while it was happening.

The culture point is that cameras and alarms only help if the household uses them. That means:

Someone reviews exterior camera footage when something feels off, and routinely when the house has been empty.
Alerts go to someone who is awake or responsible, not to a phone that is on silent.
The household talks about what it has seen. “I noticed the same white van parked down the street on Tuesday and again today” is exactly the kind of remark that should go to the security contact.
Cameras that stop working are fixed the same week, not the same season.

Speaking up: reporting the odd car and the strange call

Many attacks on homes are preceded by some kind of preparation: watching the house, checking routines, calling to see who is home, testing a gate, asking staff questions. The households that catch those signals are the ones where people feel comfortable reporting small things without worrying that they are making a fuss.

I build a simple reporting habit into every household I work with. There is one number or one person that everyone can contact with anything that seems unusual. Reports do not need to be justified. Nobody is ever made to feel foolish for reporting something that turns out to be nothing. And reports are recorded, because one odd car is nothing, but the same car noticed by the gardener on Monday, the nanny on Wednesday and the officer on Friday is a pattern.

Examples of things I want reported:

A vehicle or person seen near the house more than once without an obvious reason.
Phone calls asking who is home, when the family will be back, or questions about the house, the alarm or the valuables.
Visitors who claim to be from a utility, an insurer, the police or a delivery company and who did not have an appointment.
Doors, gates or windows found open or damaged, even if nothing seems to be missing.
Cameras or alarm sensors that stop working or appear to have been moved.
Questions from people outside the household about staff schedules, the family’s routine or travel plans.
Anything a staff member is asked to do that seems to bypass the normal security routine.

This is the human side of protective intelligence. We describe the analytic side in our post on protective intelligence from online to physical, but the reporting habit inside the home is often where the first signal appears.

Drills the family will actually do

Families do not want to run fire drills at home, and they certainly do not want to rehearse an armed home invasion. I understand that. But a plan that has never been walked through is mostly theory, and under stress people fall back on what they have practiced, not what they have read.

I keep drills short, calm and specific to the household. A typical quarterly session might take thirty minutes and cover one scenario at a time:

Night intrusion. From each bedroom, where do you go, how do you get there in the dark, and how do you call for help? Walk it.
Someone at the gate who will not leave. Who handles it, what do they say, who do they call and when do they call the police?
Duress. Does everyone who might be forced to disarm the alarm know the duress code? Have them enter it on a test.
Staff alone in the house. If intruders come in while the family is away, what does the housekeeper do? Where does she go? Who does she call afterward?
Medical emergency. Where is the trauma kit, who can use it and how is the gate opened for paramedics?

Staff should be included, and in some scenarios they should be the main participants, because the São Paulo case shows they may be the only ones there. Drills should be held at different times of day, including once in the evening. And after each drill, there should be a short conversation about what was confusing or difficult, because that is where the plan gets better.

Security for UHNW family offices: owning the culture across homes and staff

Security for UHNW family offices is partly a governance question. The family office usually employs or contracts the household staff, pays for the alarms and security providers and manages several residences. That makes it the natural owner of the household security culture across the whole family.

In practice, I want the family office to do a handful of things consistently:

Write short, plain-language household security routines for each residence, covering the night routine, visitor verification, alarm use, reporting and emergency steps, and make sure every staff member has read them and had them explained in a language they understand well.
Include security in onboarding for every new employee and contractor who works in the home, and in offboarding, with codes, keys and access removed the same day someone leaves.
Schedule drills and check that they happened.
Keep a log of reported concerns and make sure someone reviews it.
Make sure that staff never face consequences for following the security routine, even when a family member is inconvenienced by it.
Review the culture at each property once a year, alongside the technical assessment.

The family office should also think about the information its own staff hold. Employees who manage calendars, travel, payments and vendor relationships know a great deal about when each house is empty and who is in it. Our post on family office authority control deals with who has access to what and how decisions are approved.

Personal security for high networth individuals inside the home

Personal security for high networth individuals is often framed as something that happens outside: in the car, at the restaurant, at the airport. The October cases are a reminder that many violent incidents happen inside the home, in the bedroom, at night, where the principal is least prepared.

Inside the home, a few personal habits make a real difference:

Keep a phone within reach at night, charged, with emergency contacts and the security team on speed dial.
Know the duress code and the route to the safe room from your bed.
Do not keep large amounts of jewelry or cash in the bedroom. If intruders reach the bedroom, that is where they will look.
Decide, with your partner, that if either of you is threatened, the safe gets opened and the valuables go. Make that decision now.
Keep the interior bedroom door lockable, and know that a locked interior door buys seconds that can be used to call for help.
Do not investigate noises alone. Call the officer on duty or the security contact, or follow the plan.

For principals who also carry public exposure, such as executives, celebrities or public figures, this sits alongside the protection that follows them outside. We cover that in our post on personal security in public.

High net worth security services that train the household

When families buy high net worth security services, they usually buy hours of coverage: an officer at the gate, a patrol, monitoring. Training the household is often treated as something extra, or not mentioned at all. I think it should be part of what any serious provider does.

The services that build culture are practical and modest. A walk-through with every new member of staff. A written household routine for each property. A night routine that the officers check and report. A quarterly drill. A short briefing for house guests. A reporting channel and a log. A yearly review of how the household actually behaves, compared with what is written down.

At MSB Protection we have our own in-house research and development, and part of that work is building the tools that make these habits easier to keep: simple checklists, reporting channels and records that show the family office whether routines are actually happening. Technology does not replace culture, but it can make a good habit easier to keep and a missed step easier to notice.

Close protection for UHNW families and the handoff at the front door

Close protection for UHNW families includes a moment that is easy to overlook: the handoff at the front door. When a protective detail brings a family home, responsibility passes from the people who were with them all day to the household and the residential team. If that handoff is casual, the family is briefly in the least protected state of the day, standing at an open door with bags, often at night.

A good handoff is short and disciplined. The residential side confirms the house is clear before arrival. The gate and door are opened only when the vehicle is in position. The family goes inside and the door is closed and locked. The detail leader tells the residential team anything they need to know about the day, such as a person who seemed interested in the family at an event or a change in tomorrow’s schedule. Then the night routine begins.

The same applies in reverse in the morning. When the family leaves, the house is not “done” until someone confirms that it is locked, the alarm is set where appropriate and the staff know who is coming and going.

What recommended HNW security teams teach a household in the first month

I am often asked what recommended HNW security teams actually do differently in their first weeks with a family. For household culture, the first month is where the habits are set, and I look for a few things. I describe the broader picture in our post on what separates recommended HNW security teams.

In week one, the team learns the household: who lives there, who works there, the daily rhythm, the existing routines and where they break down. They walk the night routine with whoever does it now.

In week two, they write down short routines for the household, agree them with the family or family office and walk staff through them.

In week three, they test: the alarm and duress code, the safe room route, the visitor verification at the gate, the reporting channel.

In week four, they run a first short drill and review what happened. They agree a schedule for the year.

Throughout, they listen. Staff know things about the house that nobody else knows, such as the window that does not latch, the gate that sticks or the delivery driver who always asks who is home. A team that does not ask them is missing half the information.

A household security culture checklist

One named person owns the night routine at each residence, with a written list.
The alarm is set at night and whenever the house is empty, configured to fit the household.
Every adult in the house, including live-in staff, knows the duress code and the route to the safe place.
Staff know their safety comes first, and that they have authority to keep a visitor waiting while they verify.
There is one channel for reporting anything unusual, and reports are logged and reviewed.
Exterior cameras work, are fixed quickly when they fail and are actually reviewed.
Valuables are not kept in the bedroom, and the family has decided in advance to give them up under threat.
Drills happen quarterly, including staff, and at different times of day.
Guests get a short briefing.
The family office owns the culture across all homes and reviews it yearly.

Frequently asked questions

What is family office high net worth individuals security culture?

It is the set of habits and responsibilities that family members and household staff follow every day without being reminded, such as locking up at night, setting the alarm, verifying visitors, reporting unusual things and knowing what to do in an emergency, owned and supported by the family office across every residence.

Should household staff be trained in security?

Yes. Staff are often the people in the house when something happens. They need to know the routines, the reporting channel, the duress procedure and where to go. They should never be expected to confront an intruder.

Is home security for high net worth individuals mostly about equipment?

Equipment matters, but it works through the people who use it. An alarm that is not set, a window left open or a camera nobody reviews provides little protection. Culture is what makes the equipment effective.

What should I do if intruders break in while I am home?

If you can get to a safe room or secure area without passing them, go there, lock it and call for help. If not, comply, do not resist over property, observe as much as you can and call the police as soon as they leave. Use the duress code if you are forced to disarm the alarm and can do so safely.

How often should a household run security drills?

Quarterly is a reasonable rhythm for many families, with short sessions of around half an hour focused on one scenario, including staff and run at different times of day.

Bringing culture into the security plan

In São Paulo, three employees were in the house when it was attacked. In Limassol, a window had been left unsecured. In Talawade, a family slept through an attack on the floor above them, in a home with no cameras that police believe had been watched. None of these cases is a story about missing equipment. They are stories about the people in the house, the habits they had and the moments when those habits were or were not enough.

That is why I treat household culture as a protective layer in its own right, and why I want the family office to own it. Strong routines, trained staff, a reporting habit and rehearsed responses do not make a home invulnerable. They make it harder to target, quicker to notice preparation and safer when someone gets in anyway.

For the full framework, read our 2026 guide to high net worth security. If you would like help building routines and training for your household and staff, our residential security team and security assessment service are a good place to start. You can also read our account of the Puçol home invasion for a case where the family was at home.

Sources

About Michael Braun

Michael Braun is a former Special Unit Operator, former Manager at Gavin de Becker & Associates, and Founder & CEO of MSB Protection, an executive protection and residential security firm serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.

Braun has built his career at the intersection of specialized protective operations, executive protection, residential security, protective intelligence, and security risk management. His experience spans special-unit operations, leadership within Gavin de Becker & Associates, and the development and oversight of private protection programs within demanding UHNW environments.

He has been recognized by The Top 100 Magazine as a leading CEO in the private security field and is the subject of an upcoming Marquis Who’s Who feature highlighting his leadership and contributions to the profession.

Today, Braun is recognized for his work in executive protection, UHNW estate security, residential protection, protective intelligence, adversarial security assessments, and security auditing throughout Beverly Hills and Southern California.

His work focuses on moving private security beyond simply “providing a body” and toward intelligence-led, risk-based protection programs designed to identify vulnerabilities before an adversary can exploit them.

Looking for Executive Protection or Residential Security Services?

If you are a high-net-worth or ultra-high-net-worth individual, family office, estate manager, chief of staff, or executive in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Malibu or Southern California, MSB Protection provides executive protection, residential security, 24/7 protection, protective intelligence, medical-readiness planning, and security risk management.

We evaluate the complete security environment, from threat exposure and residential vulnerabilities to personnel, technology, procedures, protective intelligence, and emergency response, and build a program around the risks that actually exist.

Contact us for a confidential consultation or message us at +1 (805) 285-2807.

Family Office High Net Worth Individuals Security Culture