Optery, the leading provider of enterprise-grade personal data removal software, today announced that it has won the Transformational Anti-Phishing award in Cyber Defense Magazine’s Top InfoSec Innovators Awards for 2026, announced during CyberDefenseCon 2026.
Threat actors use personal and professional information exposed on data broker and people-search sites to identify employees, research their relationships, and target them through phishing, smishing, vishing, and impersonation. Optery for Business helps security teams reduce this exposure by finding and removing employee and executive personal information from these sites.
“Phishing prevention needs to account for the information attackers gather before they ever contact an employee,” said Paul Mander, Chief Commercial Officer and General Manager of Optery for Business. “Data broker sites give threat actors access to phone numbers, email addresses, employment details, relationships, and other information they can use to target people inside an organization. This award recognizes the value of Optery’s technology as part of a proactive defense against phishing and other forms of social engineering.”
Optery combines patented search technology and automated and custom removals to reduce exposure across hundreds of data broker and people-search sites. Optery typically finds approximately 100 exposed profiles per employee, including dozens missed by other services, and provides visual proof of its results. Recurring scans identify new and reappearing profiles, while before-and-after screenshots show where information was found and removed.
Through a self-service administrative dashboard, security and IT teams can enroll employees, monitor exposure, track removals, and measure progress across their organizations. Enterprise capabilities include real time reporting, and Optery is SOC 2 Type II attested.
Independent evaluations have repeatedly validated Optery’s effectiveness and industry leadership.
CNET named Optery Editors’ Choice and the Best Overall Data Removal Service of 2026, ranking it number one among leading data removal services. PCMag has named Optery Editors’ Choice for five consecutive years. In a TechCrunch evaluation, Optery found nearly 50 exposed profiles that had remained after the journalist used a competitor.
Optery is the most awarded personal data removal service in the industry, with major cybersecurity and technology recognition from CNET, PCMag, Cyber Defense Magazine, the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards, the Globee® Awards, SiliconANGLE, the Fortress Cybersecurity Awards, Fast Company and Evan Kirstel’s We Love Tech Awards.
“Optery embodies three major features we judges look for with the potential 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.
Now in its 14th year, Cyber Defense Magazine’s awards program recognizes cybersecurity innovators across a broad range of security categories. The full list of Top InfoSec Innovators for 2026 is available on the Cyber Defense Awards website.