SAN FRANCISCO, March 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Optery, the leader in enterprise personal data removal, has been named Market Disruptor in the Digital Risk Protection category by Cyber Defense Magazine (CDM), the industry’s leading electronic information security magazine. Now in its fourteenth year, the Global InfoSec Awards recognize cybersecurity companies delivering innovative solutions that address today’s most pressing security challenges.
Optery is unique among personal data removal solutions, combining patented search technology with sophisticated opt-out automation to discover and remove dozens more exposed data broker profiles per person on average than other services. This dual approach dramatically reduces the online employee PII exposure that fuels phishing, smishing, vishing, and credential compromise.
“Organizations are increasingly recognizing that exposed employee data leaves them extremely vulnerable to social engineering and account takeover campaigns,” said Lawrence Gentilello, CEO and Founder of Optery. “Attackers routinely harvest employee and executive information from data brokers and people-search sites to conduct reconnaissance and launch targeted attacks. Optery was built to eliminate this risk at its source by finding and removing exposed employee data at scale. We’re honored that Cyber Defense Magazine recognizes this approach as a disruptive advancement in digital risk protection.”
“Most organizations have invested heavily in securing their networks and endpoints, yet a massive amount of employee data remains publicly exposed on data broker and people-search sites,” said Paul Mander, CCO & GM of Optery for Business. “Data broker sites aggregate and publish sensitive information about employees at scale, giving attackers a roadmap for targeting organizations. Optery helps security teams systematically remove this exposure as comprehensively as possible, and we’re honored to be recognized by Cyber Defense Magazine in the Digital Risk Protection category.”
“As security leaders, we’re constantly looking for ways to shift from reactive defense to proactive risk reduction,” said Karthik Ramesh, Chief Information Security Officer at Optery. “Today the boundary of enterprise security extends well beyond corporate systems because attackers routinely gather intelligence about employees from external data sources, including data broker and people-search sites. Removing that exposure is a powerful preventive control because it limits the intelligence attackers can gather during reconnaissance and makes targeting much more difficult. Optery gives organizations the ability to continuously discover and eliminate this exposure to minimize digital risk. We’re grateful for this recognition from Cyber Defense Magazine.”
“Optery embodies three major features we judges look for to become winners: understanding tomorrow’s threats, today, providing a cost-effective solution and innovating in unexpected ways that can help mitigate cyber risk and get one step ahead of the next breach,” said Gary S. Miliefsky, Publisher of Cyber Defense Magazine.
The full list of Global InfoSec Award winners can be viewed here: http://www.cyberdefenseawards.com/
Optery will be at RSAC 2026 providing live demos of its patented personal data discovery and removal technology at booth N-4308 in the North Moscone Convention Center.
About Optery
Optery is the first company to offer a free report with dozens of screenshots showing where your personal information is being posted by hundreds of data brokers online, and the first to offer IT teams a completely self-service platform for finding and removing employee personal information from the web. Optery subscription plans automatically remove customers from these sites, clearing your home address, phone number, email, and other personal information from the Internet at scale. The service provides users with a proactive defense against escalating PII-based threats such as phishing and other social engineering attacks, credential compromise, identity fraud, doxing, and harassment. Optery has completed its AICPA SOC 2, Type II security attestation, and distinguishes itself with unparalleled search technology, data removal automation, visual evidence-based before-and-after reporting, data broker coverage, and API integration options. Optery was awarded “Editors’ Choice” by PCMag.com as the most outstanding product in the personal data removal category in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, received Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech award for security and privacy in 2023, was named winner in the Employee Privacy Protection, Attack Surface Management, and Digital Footprint Management categories of the 2024 and 2025 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards, received the Top InfoSec Innovator Award for Attack Surface Management by Cyber Defense Magazine in 2024, won the Best Service for Attack Surface Management award from Cyber Defense Magazine in 2025, won the 2025 Fortress Cybersecurity Award for Privacy Enhancing Technologies, was named a winner in SiliconANGLE’s 2025 TechForward Awards in the Digital Risk Protection category, and received the Most Innovative Anti-Phishing Award from Cyber Defense Magazine in 2025. Hundreds of thousands of people and over 1,000 businesses use Optery to prevent attacks and keep their personal information off the Internet. Learn more at https://www.optery.com
About the Global InfoSec Awards
This is Cyber Defense Magazine’s thirteenth year of honoring InfoSec innovators from around the Globe. Our submission requirements are for any startup, early stage, later stage, or public companies in the INFORMATION SECURITY (INFOSEC) space who believe they have a unique and compelling value proposition for their product or service. Learn more at http://www.cyberdefenseawards.com
About the Judging
The judges are CISSP, FMDHS, CEH, certified security professionals who voted based on their independent review of the company submitted materials on the website of each submission including but not limited to data sheets, white papers, product literature and other market variables. CDM has a flexible philosophy to find more innovative players with new and unique technologies, than the one with the most customers or money in the bank. CDM is always asking “What’s Next?” so we are looking for best of breed, next generation InfoSec solutions.
About Cyber Defense Magazine
Cyber Defense Magazine is the premier source of cyber security news and information for InfoSec professions in business and government. We are managed and published by and for ethical, honest, passionate information security professionals. Our mission is to share cutting-edge knowledge, real-world stories and awards on the best ideas, products, and services in the information technology industry. We deliver electronic magazines every month online for free, and special editions exclusively for the RSAC Conferences. CDM is a proud member of the Cyber Defense Media Group. Learn more about us at https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com and visit https://www.cyberdefensetv.com and https://www.cyberdefenseradio.com to see and hear some of the most informative interviews of many of these winning company executives. Join a webinar at https://www.cyberdefensewebinars.com and realize that infosec knowledge is power.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/38e8a2d0-324a-4362-a56a-6f01e07ff4dc
