In 2016, I invested 2 U.S. cents in bitcoin. Two years later, bitcoin had increased in value by more than 34 times, and my investment was worth—get ready for it—68 U.S. cents.

For those who take their investments more seriously, achieving a 3,400-percent return may seem like a wild success story—yet it’s happened! (See Figure 1.)

I’ll take a wild guess: you didn’t become a financial advisor to remediate identity theft. But because this kind of fraud can drastically affect their finances, clients often look to you for guidance to help them keep their identities protected.

As news of the Equifax breach broke in September 2017, hundreds of Commonwealth advisors reached out to the firm’s Information Security team, asking how to help clients avoid identity theft. Because of Equifax’s poorly managed response, the situation seemed to change hourly; it became a challenge for us all to process the news, develop an appropriate response, and help clients take the right steps to secure their personal information.

As a trainer, one of my main goals is to make sure that Commonwealth’s home office staff and our network of financial advisors are aware of (though not paranoid about) information security threats.

And there certainly have been a lot of threats recently. As the year comes to a close, I’d like to take a look back on the biggest information security incidents of 2017 and show that for every bad thing that happened, an invaluable lesson was learned. The bad guys are getting smarter, but so are the good guys.

Would you believe that the iPhone is only 10 years old? If you're like me, you might have a hard time remembering life before smartphones and tablets. After all, most of us rely on our mobile devices for everything from completing daily tasks to connecting with friends.

With recent events like the Equifax breach affecting millions of people, there's no doubt that cybersecurity is more important than ever before. And for professionals in the financial planning industry, security awareness is imperative. Your responsibility extends beyond your own finances, identity, and privacy. You are also charged with helping to protect your clients' sensitive information. So, where can you start?