Key Takeaways
- Optery won the 2026 Fortress Cybersecurity Award in the Privacy Enhancing Technologies category for its enterprise‑grade personal data removal platform.
- The platform locates and removes employee and executive personal information from 640+ data‑broker sites, reducing exposure that fuels social‑engineering, impersonation, and account‑takeover attacks.
- Cybersecurity leaders ranked data brokers as the #1 source of attacker intelligence and personal‑data removal as the #1 investment for defending against social engineering.
- Independent testing (Consumer Reports blind study) named Optery the most effective personal‑data‑removal service, and the company has accumulated a slew of industry accolades over the past several years.
- Real‑world deployment at a multi‑billion‑dollar regional bank cut spam, phishing, and smishing attempts by roughly half, demonstrating measurable risk reduction.
- Optery combines patented search technology, automated opt‑out requests, verification, continuous monitoring, and detailed before‑and‑after reporting, with API access for embedding the technology into existing security stacks.
Introduction
On June 2, 2026, Optery announced that it had been named a winner in the 2026 Fortress Cybersecurity Awards, specifically in the Privacy Enhancing Technologies category. Presented by the Business Intelligence Group, the award honors organizations, products, and individuals that apply cybersecurity to deliver real, measurable protection. The Fortress program evaluates entrants across the full spectrum of digital defense, rewarding those who move security from reactive to proactive, accountable practice. This year’s competition recognized winners in 27 categories spanning six countries, underscoring the global relevance of the honorees’ contributions.
Award Details and Significance
The 2026 Fortress Cybersecurity Awards celebrate measurable impact rather than mere novelty. Winners are selected based on how effectively they use cybersecurity to reduce risk, protect data and assets, prevent harm, and strengthen organizational resilience. Optery’s victory highlights its success in turning a growing threat—personal‑data exposure on data‑broker and people‑search sites—into a concrete defensive capability. By earning this recognition, Optery joins a distinguished cohort of companies that are shaping the next phase of digital defense, where accountability and quantifiable outcomes are paramount.
Optery’s Enterprise‑Grade Solution
Optery’s core offering is an enterprise‑grade personal data removal platform designed to help organizations find and strip employee and executive personal information from hundreds of data‑broker and people‑search websites. The service continuously scans these sites, automates opt‑out requests, verifies that removals have been completed, and monitors for any republished profiles. Users receive detailed Exposure and Removals Reports that include before‑and‑after screenshots, providing transparent evidence of what data was found and where it has been erased. This end‑to‑end workflow transforms a manual, tedious process into a scalable, auditable security control.
Addressing Social‑Engineering Risks
In today’s threat landscape, AI‑enabled social engineering relies heavily on personal data harvested from data brokers. Optery’s 2026 Enterprise Social Engineering Survey Report revealed that cybersecurity leaders consider data brokers the number‑one source of attacker intelligence, while personal‑data removal from those brokers ranks as the top investment for defending against social‑engineering attacks. By reducing the amount of exploitable personal information publicly available, Optery directly diminishes the fodder attackers use for phishing, smishing, impersonation, and credential‑theft campaigns, thereby lowering the likelihood of successful breaches.
Leadership Perspectives
Russ Fordyce, Chief Recognition Officer at the Business Intelligence Group, emphasized that the 2026 awards focus on execution, accountability, and measurable resilience. He noted that Optery stood out because its work in Privacy Enhancing Technologies exemplifies practical cybersecurity that solves real problems, earns trust, and protects the people and assets that depend on it. Lawrence Gentilello, CEO and Founder of Optery, expressed gratitude for the recognition, stating that the award reflects the company’s success in making personal‑data protection measurable, scalable, and accountable. He highlighted that cybersecurity professionals on the front lines now view data‑broker exposure as a primary enabler of targeted attacks and are expanding removal coverage across broader workforces as a result.
Platform Features and Technical Edge
Optery differentiates itself through patented search technology combined with sophisticated opt‑out automation, enabling it to discover and remove dozens more exposed data‑broker profiles per person on average than competing services. The platform currently supports automated removals for over 640 data‑broker sites and more than 1,000 sites when custom removal requests are included, with coverage continually expanding. Additional strengths highlighted by independent evaluations include the breadth of its search capabilities, the speed of its removals, and the richness of its reporting. In a blind study conducted by Consumer Reports, Optery emerged as the #1 most effective personal‑data‑removal service after a four‑month evaluation period.
Real‑World Impact: Client Case Study
A multi‑billion‑dollar regional bank provides a concrete illustration of Optery’s value. After establishing a mature security culture, implementing social‑engineering training, achieving a phish‑click rate below 2%, and fostering strong employee reporting, the bank’s CISO still recognized that a single successful phish could cause serious damage. Post‑deployment of Optery, the bank observed a significant reduction in spam, phishing, and smishing attempts. The CISO reported that his personal spam emails dropped by roughly 50%, spam phone calls declined markedly, and employees noticed far fewer phishing attempts targeting them. Moreover, Optery helped slow SMS‑based impersonation attacks against staff, demonstrating how reducing exposed personal data translates into tangible defensive benefits.
Independent Evaluations and Industry Accolades
Beyond the Fortress award, Optery has garnered a multitude of honors from respected technology and cybersecurity outlets. PCMag has awarded it Editors’ Choice for personal data removal every year from 2022 through 2026. The company placed No. 12 on the 2026 Inc. Regionals: Pacific list of fastest‑growing private companies. Additional recognitions include the Cyber Defense Magazine Market Disruptor Award in Digital Risk Protection, multiple Cybersecurity Excellence Awards (Human Risk Management, Anti‑Phishing, Attack Surface Management), Globee® Awards for Cybersecurity (Social Engineering Best of Category), SiliconANGLE TechForward Award in Digital Risk Protection, and several Evan Kirstel We Love Tech Awards. These accolades collectively affirm Optery’s leadership in mitigating digital risk and protecting personal information at scale.
Conclusion
Optery’s receipt of the 2026 Fortress Cybersecurity Award in Privacy Enhancing Technologies underscores a critical shift in cybersecurity strategy: moving beyond perimeter defenses to proactively shrink the attack surface by eliminating exploitable personal data. Through its enterprise‑grade removal platform, Optery empowers organizations to reduce the information available to attackers, thereby lowering the success rates of social‑engineering, phishing, and impersonation campaigns. Independent testing, real‑world client outcomes, and a growing list of industry honors validate the effectiveness and scalability of its approach. As threats continue to evolve, solutions like Optery’s that deliver measurable, accountable protection will remain essential components of a resilient digital defense posture.