Higher Education
- Remove Employee Personal Data.
- Reduce Cyber & Physical Risk.
- Protect Your People & Institution.
Eliminate the exposed data that fuels phishing, impersonation, account takeover, and physical threats across campus communities.
The Threat Landscape
Higher education institutions have a broad attack surface due to the sheer number of individuals whose identities and contact details are exposed online, making them vulnerable to both cyber and physical threats.
Recent reporting confirms several consistent, real-world threats universities face:
Credential theft and account abuse are pervasive. Verizon’s 2025 DBIR shows that stolen credentials were used in 24% of hacking incidents in Educational Services, often as the initial access point for larger attacks. These credentials are overwhelmingly obtained through phishing and infostealer campaigns.
Phishing remains the dominant social engineering method. In DBIR’s breakdown of social engineering incidents in higher education, 77% involved phishing.
Ransomware and extortion frequently follow credential compromise. Malware was involved in 42% of higher education breaches, with ransomware the most common malware variant. These attacks typically begin with phishing or credential harvesting rather than technical exploitation.
Physical and personal safety risks are rising alongside cyber threats. Universities have increasingly faced doxxing, stalking, harassment, and threats against faculty, administrators, and researchers.
Optery reduces these risks by removing exposed personal data from data brokers and people-search sites, limiting attackers’ ability to target individuals across both cyber and physical threat scenarios.
Prevent Higher Education Threats
Prevent Phishing & Credential Compromise
Remove exposed PII that fuels phishing and account takeover attacks.
Reduce Impersonation & Fraud
Eliminate the personal data attackers use to impersonate faculty, administrators, or IT staff.
Protect Public-Facing Roles
Safeguard faculty, researchers, and administrators with high online visibility.
Support Campus Safety
Minimize exposed address and contact data that can escalate to harassment or physical threats.
Demonstrate Risk Reduction
Show leadership, boards, and insurers that you are addressing a major pre-attack risk.
Compliance & Risk Alignment
Optery supports higher education security and privacy obligations by reducing exposed personal data that enables unauthorized access and targeted attacks:
FERPA: Helps protect sensitive student-related data by reducing employee account compromise that can lead to unauthorized access.
NIST CSF 2.0: Supports Identify, Protect, and Detect functions by reducing external personal-data exposure used in adversary reconnaissance.
ISO 27001: Enhances institutional risk management and threat mitigation related to identity-based attacks.
SOC 2 Type II: Demonstrates that Optery securely processes, stores, and protects sensitive personal data.
Why Higher Education Institutions Choose Optery
Patented Search Technology
Finds significantly more data broker profiles per person — ~100 on average, including 40–50 missed by competitors.
Before-and-After Screenshot Proof
The only service that provides before-and-after visual evidence of its effectiveness.
AI-Powered Automation
Automates complex opt-out workflows at scale with intelligence, autonomy, and precision — running securely on Optery’s private AWS Bedrock infrastructure. No personal data is shared with external model providers or used for training.
Unmatched Coverage
Covers 635+ brokers by default, with 715+ additional custom brokers supported — the broadest coverage in the industry.
Real-World Results
“Optery makes a huge difference in improving the security and reducing the risk of our clients. I don’t like hunting people online who have used Optery. I have clients who have used DeleteMe, and I don’t have to do much to find them. It’s extremely easy to find people who have used DeleteMe. With Optery, it’s different. I’m looking harder. It’s not particularly easy to do. There’s quality there. Post-Optery, it is definitely harder to hunt and target someone.”
— CEO, Executive Protection Firm
Outcome:
Prevent spear-phishing attacks, reduce cyber insurance premiums, protect tech staff from targeted attacks.
Enterprise-Ready
Platform
- SOC 2 Type II Attestation
- Admin Dashboard
- SAML, SCIM, SSO Integration
- Tiered Pricing for Role-Based Protection
Track Impact.
Prove Value.
Organizations measure ROI through Optery’s business dashboard, which provides real-time metrics including:
- Profiles Removed vs. Exposed
- Types of PII Exposed
- Sites Scanned
- PII Attack Surface Reduction
- Time Saved: Automated vs. Manual Removals
These insights help teams track security gains, operational efficiency, and risk reduction over time.
See Optery in Action
Ready to increase your security posture?
Let’s connect.
Complete the form and an Optery team member will be in touch shortly.