Cybersecurity For
Accounting Firms
and CPA Practices.

Accounting firms concentrate the financial details of hundreds or thousands of clients in one place: tax returns, M&A advisory documents, audit working papers, payroll records, and corporate financials. This concentration of high-value data, combined with often-thinner security investment than the corporate clients firms serve, makes accounting practices attractive to both criminal and nation-state actors. Tax season further concentrates risk into a few high-pressure months.

Most enterprise audit and advisory clients now send security questionnaires before engaging a firm. These typically map to SOC 2, ISO 27001, or NIST CSF and cover access management, encryption, incident response, vendor risk, business continuity, and security testing. Our Compliance Audit service prepares firms with documented controls and evidence specifically structured to respond to these questionnaires efficiently.

CPA Codes of Professional Conduct require members to protect client confidential information, with regulators increasingly interpreting "appropriate safeguards" to include cybersecurity. The duty does not specify a framework but expects practitioners to understand the risks of the technology they use and to take reasonable steps to mitigate those risks. We help firms document the controls and the reasoning behind them so the duty is demonstrably met.

Tax season concentrates risk: more credential reuse under deadline pressure, increased phishing volume, more temporary staff, and reduced ability to take systems offline for maintenance. Our managed cybersecurity service, vCISO advisory, and threat intelligence run continuously and ramp up monitoring during tax season. We can also support seasonal staff onboarding security and tax-season tabletop exercises.

Yes. Cyber insurance renewals now require detailed control attestation, with insurers verifying claims and declining coverage where evidence is missing. Our Compliance Audit and vCISO services produce the documented controls and evidence that insurers require, and we support renewal applications with letters of attestation from a senior cybersecurity professional where helpful.

Solo CPAs and small firms typically engage us through Armour 360 for managed cybersecurity at small-firm pricing, plus an optional fractional vCISO at minimal monthly engagement for governance and confidentiality oversight. Mid-size firms add Compliance Audit and Penetration Testing for client RFP responses. The economics scale with firm size, not just headcount.

Yes. Audit firms face heightened scrutiny over audit working paper confidentiality, restricted-list management, and independence. Tax practices face concentrated seasonal risk and large volumes of personal financial information. Advisory and consulting practices face client confidentiality similar to law firms. We tailor engagements to the practice mix and the specific obligations of each line of business.