Optery

Protecting executives and front-line workers requires both digital safeguards and physical security strategies, and personal data removal is a cornerstone of both. Attackers exploit publicly available personal information for cyber scams and physical threats, from phishing and impersonation to stalking and targeted violence. Finding and removing this information minimizes the availability of personal data attackers can use to intimidate, manipulate, blackmail, or otherwise harm executives. With less information to exploit, attackers face greater difficulty crafting convincing phishing messages and reaching their targets. Personal data removal also strengthens physical security by denying criminals sensitive information like executive home addresses or family members’ names – details that could lead to doxxing, harassment, or worse. Addressing the online exposure of your executives and front-line workers begins by uncovering where their personal data is accessible to attackers. Optery’s free scan and exposure reports leverage the most advanced data broker scanning software in the world to find more exposed profiles than anyone else. Take the first step towards proactively protecting your people from fraud and threats with unparalleled visibility into their online exposure. #executiveprotection #phishing #doxxing

The holidays are a time for joy and togetherness—but they’re also a time when scammers and cybercriminals are most active. Staying safe requires keeping your personal information out of their hands. Here are five essential tips for protecting yourself and your loved ones this holiday season: 🎄 Find Out Your Personal Data Exposure Exposed personal information is readily accessible online through data broker sites via a simple Google search. Cybercriminals leverage this data for phishing, smishing, vishing, identity fraud, credential harvesting, password cracking, and more. Optery’s free scan and exposure report provides unmatched visibility into where your info is exposed along with self-service removal tools to help you address it. Don’t have the time? Opt for a paid plan and we’ll handle it for you. Looking to protect your family or team of employees? You can safeguard an unlimited number of family and friends under a single Family Administrator account, with up to 30% off all your plans. You can also sign up for a free Optery for Business account and get up to 10 free employee basic accounts to assess exposure. For automated personal data removal and monitoring at scale, visit our pricing page to instantly calculate the cost based on your needs. 🎄 Protect Your Data with the Optery GPC Browser Extension Install the free Optery Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser extension, which automatically signals websites not to sell or share your personal information. Available on the Chrome Web Store, this tool helps reduce unwanted tracking and ensures your privacy preferences are respected. 🎄 Limit What You Share Online Attackers can exploit details shared on social media in various harmful ways, including crafting convincing scams, impersonating you, or facilitating robbery. Be mindful of what you post and adjust your privacy settings to limit public access. 🎄 Use a Password Manager Assume your passwords have either already been exposed or can be easily found and cracked by hackers using your basic contact info. Using the same password or variations of it across accounts makes it easy for bad actors to compromise your accounts. Password managers securely store and generate unique passwords for each account and can also recognize fraudulent websites to protect you from scams. 🎄 Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) MFA adds a vital layer of security to your accounts. Even if your credentials are compromised, MFA can prevent unauthorized access. Physical MFA tokens (such as FIDO or YubiKeys) provide even greater protection. Take these simple steps to reduce your risk, help others who may be less tech savvy, and make this holiday season safe and secure for yourself and your loved ones! 

Optery is live at eCourts 2024 in Las Vegas! We’re excited to be here at Booth #330, showcasing how our personal data discovery and removal technology proactively protects court personnel from a wide range of cyber and physical threats. If you're here at eCourts, stop by for a live demo and discover how Optery can significantly enhance the security of your court operations and protect court staff from hacking, doxxing, harassment, intimidation, and more. We look forward to meeting you! #eCourts2024 #CourtSecurity #PIIremoval

Optery will be in Las Vegas for eCourts 2024, December 9–11! If you’re attending, make sure to visit us at Booth #330 for a live demo of Optery’s capabilities! Discover how we enhance the security of court operations by finding and minimizing the online exposure of judges’ and court staff’s personal information in the most comprehensive way possible. By reducing this exposure, we help protect court personnel from targeted threats such as hacking, doxxing, blackmail, harassment, and intimidation. We look forward to connecting with you at the MGM Grand! #eCourts #CourtSecurity #PIIRemoval

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has announced a new proposal to regulate data brokers that collect and sell Americans' sensitive personal and financial information. This move aims to safeguard individuals from the numerous dangers posed by unregulated data brokerage practices, including: ⭕ National Security Risks: Unrestricted sale of personal data allows adversaries to purchase detailed information about military personnel and government employees. This poses significant threats through potential espionage, surveillance, or blackmail operations. ⭕ Criminal Exploitation: Identity thieves and scammers exploit data broker services to obtain sensitive information and conduct phishing scams and financial fraud. ⭕ Threats to Personal Safety: The easy availability of personal identifiers like addresses and phone numbers puts law enforcement officers, judges, and domestic violence survivors at risk. Attackers can access private information, leading to doxxing, stalking, harassment, or worse. ⭕ Privacy Violations: Data brokers compile extensive profiles on individuals without their knowledge or consent, infringing on personal privacy and enabling unauthorized use of personal information. How the Proposed Regulation Addresses These Dangers: ⭕ Expanding FCRA Protections: The rule would classify data brokers as "consumer reporting agencies" under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). This holds them to the same standards as traditional credit bureaus, requiring compliance with accuracy requirements and allowing consumers access to their information. ⭕ Restricting Sale of Personal Identifiers: The proposal limits the sale of sensitive personal data such as Social Security numbers and phone numbers. This curtails the misuse of information by scammers, stalkers, and spies. ⭕ Requiring Explicit Consumer Consent: Data brokers would need to obtain clear and separate consent from consumers before sharing their personal data. This ensures that individuals have control over who accesses their information. ⭕ Maintaining Security Pathways: While enhancing consumer protections, the rule aims to preserve existing pathways for law enforcement, national security agencies, and companies to access necessary information for legitimate purposes. While the proposal makes strides in protecting Americans' sensitive data, key concerns remain: ⭕ Impact on Anti-Fraud Tools: By requiring consumer consent for the use of personal identifiers, the proposal could hinder the use of credit header data in fraud prevention tools like identity verification, KYC/AML processes, and address verification. ⭕ Criminal Exploitation of Consent Requirements: The proposed rules could allow bad actors to deny the use of data that might otherwise reveal fraudulent activity or prevent crimes. 👇 Link in comments.

Deter attackers by making sure they see a challenge instead of an opportunity. The amount of executive and employee personal data that a company leaves on the web sends a powerful signal to attackers. When a business proactively works to take their employee PII out of circulation, ensuring it is not easily accessible through quick Google searches or data broker sites, it signals that the company is hyper-diligent about security. It tells attackers the company likely has security-conscious employees and other protections in place that will make it a challenging target. In contrast, businesses that haven’t addressed employee PII exposure may appear more vulnerable during attacker reconnaissance efforts. Exposed data provides ample fuel for social engineering, credential harvesting, and password cracking, and suggests potential weaknesses elsewhere. This can make the company a more attractive target. Reducing personal data exposure limits opportunities for attackers to exploit and demonstrates vigilance. Comprehensive personal data removal deters potential attackers and lowers the likelihood of becoming a target. #socialengineering #credentialcompromise #personaldataremoval

This Thanksgiving, we’re thankful for family, friends, and their safety. 🦃 The holidays are a time to cherish our loved ones—but they’re also a time to think about how we can keep them safe. At Optery, we understand how the growing availability of exposed personal information leaves our loved ones more vulnerable than ever to fraud, financial loss, and potential physical threats. That’s why we make it easy to protect unlimited family and friends under a single Family Administrator account—with discounts of up to 30% off all your plans! The more of your loved ones you protect, the greater the savings. This Thanksgiving, take the first step toward safeguarding your loved ones’ personal info from exploitation by cybercriminals and fraudsters. Discover how easy it is to protect your loved ones today: https://lnkd.in/gUVjcUTr Wishing you a warm and secure holiday season from all of us at Optery! #Thanksgiving #CyberSecurity #PIIRemoval

To mark Fraud Awareness Week, we’re sharing some essential facts and tips to help your organization better protect itself from the most common attack vectors leading to organizational breaches and fraud: compromised credentials (Valid Accounts) and social engineering. These attack vectors have one thing in common—they exploit a critical security gap many organizations overlook. Addressing this vulnerability can make all the difference in reducing the volume of attacks and their likelihood of success. Here’s what your business needs to know: #FraudAwarenessWeek #AttackSurfaceManagement #PIIRemoval

Fraud Awareness Week 2024 is here and it's the perfect time to evaluate how your company is handling PII exposure! We've got some questions to help you assess your current approach.  Reducing your company’s exposure to fraud means recognizing and addressing PII as a key vulnerability. Publicly accessible employee data becomes fuel for attackers to impersonate, deceive, and gain unauthorized access to your systems. Here are some questions to consider: ❓ Does your company provide PII removal to reduce risk and prevent PII-based attacks like phishing, smishing, vishing, identity fraud, and BEC? If not, it may be time to consider a solution that proactively addresses these risks at scale. ❓ Are you monitoring for newly exposed PII over time to keep up with profile respawning? Data brokers are notorious for repopulating profiles. Without continuous monitoring and re-removal efforts, any gains made can be undone. ❓ Is PII removal only being prioritized for executives, leaving other high-risk roles exposed? Contractors, engineers, IT staff, finance personnel, help desk personnel, HR staff, and generally any employees with credentials are in bad actors’ crosshairs. Expanding PII removal to other high-risk roles has become a necessity. ❓ Are you confident you’re identifying all instances of exposed PII—or could some be slipping through the cracks? If you’re unsure, consider running Optery’s free scan and exposure report to see what information might be out there. #fraudprevention #PIIremoval #cybersecurity

Optery Founder and CEO Lawrence Gentilello recently joined intelligence and security evangelist AJ Nash on the Unspoken Security podcast to talk about the shadowy world of data brokers, their impact on privacy and security, the challenges of protecting personal data, state-level data privacy legislation, the evolving role of AI in data brokering, proactive steps to minimize exposure and risk, and more! In the clip below, Lawrence highlights the developing privacy disparity in the U.S. A divide is emerging between those who have data privacy rights, and those who do not. If you live in a state with no comprehensive data privacy law like New York or Washington, you have basically no legal rights to data privacy. Data brokers are increasingly taking advantage of this. Treating the requests of citizens in states with data privacy laws with more respect, and those in states without them with less respect. We see this on the data privacy frontlines at Optery every day and are grateful to AJ Nash for bringing attention to this growing divide on the Unspoken Security podcast. Which states have comprehensive data privacy laws today? California, Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Oregon. Which states' data privacy laws go into effect in 2025 and 2026? Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. If your state is not listed, tell your representatives you want a comprehensive data privacy law passed in your state asap! Check out the entire episode of Unspoken Security podcast via the links in the comments!