Over the last few years, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, senior executives and those in prominent positions have begun to look at security very differently. Not because one headline suddenly changed everything, but because a steady accumulation of incidents has exposed how fragile assumed safety can be.
Recent years have seen a marked increase in crypto-linked kidnappings, targeted attacks on senior executives, high-profile murders linked to digital wealth, repeated smash-and-grab robberies across prime London locations, and the deliberate targeting of executives and their families for the access, information, and influence they hold. These are not hypothetical risks, they are tangible, recent, and increasingly personal.
This shift is reflected in broader security data. The 2025 Allied Universal World Security Report found that 42 percent of chief security officers believe the threat of violence towards senior executives has increased, while 97 percent of global institutional investors now consider executive protection a critical expectation of the companies they invest in. At the same time, 26 percent of organisations reported revenue loss following a security incident, underlining that personal security failures frequently translate into business impact.
The result is a move away from reactive security and towards structured evaluation.
From Prestige to Practicality
UHNW individuals and executives are increasingly looking beyond the prestige of a postcode or the reputation of a building and asking more practical questions. How is a residence actually accessed? How quickly can security respond to an incident? Who can move through shared spaces? How visible have routines become, both physically and online? How are staff recruited, vetted, and retained? Where do personal, family, and business risks overlap?
This reassessment is well-founded. Analysis of executive targeting incidents between 2003 and 2025 shows that workplace and residential targeting has increased significantly since 2020, with nearly half of all incidents now occurring in an executive’s home city and a growing proportion taking place at or near residences. Importantly, 33 percent of recorded incidents resulted in death or physical injury, reinforcing that these are not nuisance events but potentially life-threatening encounters.
What has changed most is the appetite for assumption. Security is no longer about responding to the last incident in the news. It is about quietly stress-testing lifestyles, homes, organisations, and behaviours to ensure they remain resilient in a changing risk environment.
A Structured Approach to Modern Security
At Sloane Risk Group, this reassessment typically follows three stages: Assess, Defend, Educate.
Assess
The starting point is understanding the real danger, not the perceived one. This means identifying credible threats, existing vulnerabilities, and the true level of risk.
Assessment now goes far beyond a site visit or crime map. It includes threat scanning across physical, digital, and human domains; digital profile and online exposure analysis; and a close examination of routines, patterns, and predictability. For executives, it also means understanding how business risk and personal risk intersect, particularly where intellectual property, strategic decision-making, or sensitive relationships are involved.
This focus is supported by data. The Executive Targeting Report: Analysis of Attacks on Corporate Executives from 2003-2025, identified 424 targeted incidents against corporate executives between 2003 and late-2025, with incident volumes more than doubling year-on-year between 2024 and 2025 alone. While CEOs remain the most targeted group, attacks against non-CEO senior leaders have increased sharply, reflecting a broader targeting strategy by threat actors.
Risk analysis therefore extends beyond the principal to staff, family members, residences, travel patterns, public visibility, and levels of notoriety. In many cases, the highest exposure sits with those around the individual rather than the individual themselves.
Defend
Defence is no longer about visible security for reassurance alone. It is about proportionate, intelligent controls that reduce exposure without disrupting lifestyle or business operations.
This may include residential security upgrades, enhanced response capability, and the discreet integration of surveillance detection professionals into existing executive protection teams. Technical security plays a big part, for example, ensuring devices and networks are secure. The Allied Universal report highlights that the convergence of physical and cyber threats is now a central concern for security leaders, with 73 percent of organisations reporting they have been targeted by misinformation or disinformation campaigns, many of which escalate into physical security risks.
Defence also increasingly involves reassessing how staff are recruited, onboarded, and managed to reduce insider risk, and making deliberate changes to lifestyle predictability, particularly online. For many clients, small changes to routine and visibility and actively planning for “what if” scenarios often achieve more risk reduction than overt security measures alone
Educate
Education is where long-term resilience is built.
This includes educating younger family members and those newly exposed to wealth or liquidity, helping them understand risk without creating fear, for example, explaining how social engineering attacks specifically target people based on the information they provide online. It involves training staff to understand why security matters, how they themselves may be targeted for information or access, how to recognise hostile surveillance, and what good security behaviour looks like in practice.
The Executive Targeting Report shows that 76 percent of assailants were strangers, but incidents involving current or former employees are becoming more common, highlighting the importance of awareness and behavioural education across households and organisations
Education also extends to social and professional relationships. Being thoughtful about new friendships, partnerships, and information sharing is increasingly important, not only to avoid physical targeting, but to prevent reputational damage, manipulation, or exploitation.
Security as an Ongoing Discipline
The common thread across all of this is that security is no longer a static product. It is an ongoing discipline that evolves alongside lifestyle, wealth, visibility, and threat.
For UHNW individuals, prominent people and executives, the question is no longer “am I safe here?” but “does my security still reflect who I am, what I do, and how I live today?”
For more details on how we assess and strengthen both business and lifestyle security, contact the Sloane Risk Group team.
enquiries@sloaneriskgroup.com
www.sloaneriskgroup.com
Written by Hayley Elvins, Chartered Security Professional and Managing Director of Sloane Risk Group.
