Optery named a winner in the 2026 Evan Kirstel's Pamplin Media Group Love Tech Awards. GlobeNewswire | Optery Today at 7:00am PDT SAN FRANCISCO, May 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Optery today announced that it has been named a winner in the Security / CyberSecurity category of the 2026 Evan Kirstel's Pamplin Media Group Love Tech Awards, an annual program celebrating the individuals, organizations, and products reshaping how enterprises work, communicate, secure data, serve customers, and put artificial intelligence into responsible production. Optery is the leader in enterprise-grade personal data removal and the first company to offer IT teams a completely self-service platform for finding and removing employee PII from the web. The award recognizes Optery for helping organizations reduce cyber and physical risk by finding and removing exposed employee personal data from data broker and people-search sites. "From the beginning, our focus has been on building technology that gives people and organizations real visibility into exposed personal data and a practical, effective way to remove it," said Lawrence Gentilello, CEO and founder of Optery. "We're grateful to the We Love Tech Awards for recognizing the impact of that work in helping prevent cyberattacks and physical threats." Optery combines patented search technology with sophisticated opt-out automation to discover and remove dozens more exposed data broker profiles per person than competitors, and is the only service that proves its work with before-and-after screenshots. This approach gives organizations greater visibility into employee exposure and helps reduce the personal data attackers use to carry out social engineering, impersonation, doxxing, and physical threats. "Optery is operating in one of the most underappreciated parts of the security stack, the personal data exposure that quietly fuels social engineering, account takeover, and fraud. Removing more exposed profiles per person than anyone else, on autopilot, is exactly the kind of practical, scale-ready security work this award category exists to recognize," said Evan Kirstel, Founder, Pamplin Media Group Love Tech Awards. The 2026 Pamplin Media Group Love Tech Awards recognize honorees across Individual, Organization, and Product nomination types in 15 solution categories spanning artificial intelligence, cloud computing, customer experience, cybersecurity, SaaS, IoT, and more. Almost 400 volunteer judges evaluated entries using the program's domain-specific scoring framework. The full list of 2026 winners is available at welovetechawards.com. About Evan Kirstel Evan Kirstel is one of the most influential voices in B2B technology, with a social reach of more than 550,000 followers across his podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, X, and Instagram. With years of experience working with Fortune 1000 brands, Evan helps companies harness social media for strategic growth, audience engagement, and social selling. Learn more at evankirstel.com. About Business Intelligence Group Business Intelligence Group (BIG) is an independent awards organization that has been recognizing outstanding achievement in business since 2012. Now in its 14th awards season, BIG operates more than 10 annual programs spanning innovation, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, customer service, cloud computing, sustainability, sales and marketing, workplace culture, and women's leadership. Unlike popularity contests, BIG programs use professional judging panels and objective scoring benchmarks to identify organizations, products, and individuals making real, measurable impact. Winners receive a complete promotional toolkit - including blockchain-verified credentials, press release support, social media assets, and featured placement across BIG's global community of more than one million business professionals. For more information, visit www.bintelligence.com. 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 security 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 named a PCMag Editors' Choice for personal data removal in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026; was ranked No. 12 Fastest-Growing Private Company in the 2026 Inc. Regionals: Pacific list; received Cyber Defense Magazine's Market Disruptor Award in Digital Risk Protection in 2026; won Cybersecurity Excellence Awards in Human Risk Management, Anti-Phishing, and Attack Surface Management in 2026; and earned a Globee(R) Award for Cybersecurity, Social Engineering (Best of Category) in 2026. The company also won the Top InfoSec Innovator Award for Most Innovative Anti-Phishing from Cyber Defense Magazine in 2025, was recognized in SiliconANGLE's TechForward Awards in the Digital Risk Protection Platform category in 2025, received the Fortress Cybersecurity Award for Privacy Enhancing Technologies in 2025, earned Cybersecurity Excellence Awards in Employee Privacy Protection, Attack Surface Management, and Digital Footprint Management in 2024 and 2025, was named Best Service for Attack Surface Management from Cyber Defense Magazine, received Top InfoSec Innovator Award for Attack Surface Management by Cyber Defense Magazine for 2024, and received Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech award for security and privacy in 2023. Hundreds of thousands of people and over 1,000 businesses use Optery to prevent attacks and keep their personal information off the Internet. For more information, visit www.optery.com. Media Contacts Eliana Starbird Chief Nominations Officer Business Intelligence Group +1 909-529-2737 [email protected] This is a paid placement. For further inquiries, please contact GlobeNewswire directly.

Optery wins Best of Category in Social Engineering in the 2026 Globee(R) Awards for Cybersecurity. Globee Awards honors Optery for helping organizations prevent social engineering attacks. April 14, 2026 09:00 ET | Source: Optery SAN FRANCISCO, April 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Optery, the award-winning personal data removal platform helping individuals and businesses remove exposed personal information from data broker and people-search websites, is honored to be named the Best of Category winner in Social Engineering in the 2026 Globee(R) Awards for Cybersecurity, a globally recognized program celebrating excellence in all areas of cybersecurity. This recognition highlights Optery's contributions to digital security by helping organizations comprehensively remove the exposed personal data attackers use for phishing, smishing, vishing, impersonation, and business email compromise. Optery helps address a key enabler of modern social engineering attacks: the widespread exposure of personal data on data broker and people-search websites. Optery scans hundreds of these sites to locate exposed personal information tied to an individual, automates opt-out requests, verifies removals, and continuously monitors for republished profiles. Users receive detailed reports showing exactly where their personal data was found and removed, including before-and-after screenshots. Optery combines 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. Optery currently supports automated removals for 640+ data broker sites and 1,000+ sites including Custom Removals requests, with coverage continually expanding. For Optery customers, the result is significantly reduced social engineering risk and fewer attacks reaching employees. San Madan, President of the Globee Awards, commented: "Congratulations to the 2026 winners for their exceptional contributions to strengthening our digital world. Your innovation, dedication, and leadership continue to advance cybersecurity and inspire progress across industries. We are proud to recognize and celebrate your success." Lawrence Gentilello, CEO of Optery, said: "Organizations have invested heavily in detecting and responding to social engineering attacks, but attackers still have easy access to the personal data that makes those attacks work. We're honored to receive this recognition from the Globee Awards for helping organizations remove that data and reduce social engineering risk at the source." Karthik Ramesh, Chief Information Security Officer at Optery, said: "Organizations need a proactive way to comprehensively reduce the personal data attackers use to target employees and executives, and that is exactly the problem Optery is able to solve. This recognition reflects the importance of Optery's work in helping organizations prevent social engineering attacks." View the full list of 2026 winners: https://globeeawards.com/cybersecurity/winners/ About the Judging Process The Globee(R) Awards for Cybersecurity utilize a data-driven evaluation framework, with participation from experienced professionals and industry experts worldwide. This ensures a fair, transparent, and highly competitive assessment process. About the Globee(R) Awards The Globee(R) Awards, a business awards program with worldwide participation, organize 10 awards programs that recognize achievements and innovations across multiple industries and sectors. These include programs focused on business, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, leadership, innovation, customer excellence, technology, and more. 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 security 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 named a PCMag Editors' Choice for personal data removal in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026; was ranked No. 12 Fastest-Growing Private Company in the 2026 Inc. Regionals: Pacific list; received Cyber Defense Magazine's Market Disruptor Award in Digital Risk Protection in 2026; won Cybersecurity Excellence Awards in Human Risk Management, Anti-Phishing, and Attack Surface Management in 2026; and earned a Globee(R) Award for Cybersecurity, Social Engineering (Best of Category) in 2026. The company also won the Top InfoSec Innovator Award for Most Innovative Anti-Phishing from Cyber Defense Magazine in 2025, was recognized in SiliconANGLE's TechForward Awards in the Digital Risk Protection Platform category in 2025, received the Fortress Cybersecurity Award for Privacy Enhancing Technologies in 2025, earned Cybersecurity Excellence Awards in Employee Privacy Protection, Attack Surface Management, and Digital Footprint Management in 2024 and 2025, was named Best Service for Attack Surface Management from Cyber Defense Magazine, received Top InfoSec Innovator Award for Attack Surface Management by Cyber Defense Magazine for 2024, and received Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech award for security and privacy in 2023. Hundreds of thousands of people and over 1,000 businesses use Optery to prevent attacks and keep their personal information off the Internet. For more information, visit www.optery.com. For Media Inquiries:

DeleteMe acquires social media tool Block Party. DeleteMe hints at expanding its online privacy protection by acquiring Block Party, a social-media clean-up tool. Both tools remain separate for now. Last Updated: 09 Apr'26 DeleteMe is one of the best-known online data removal services, contacting data brokers on your behalf to request data removal (you can read more about it in its DeleteMe review). Data brokers harvest publicly available data about people and package that information to sell to companies, government agencies and really anyone who wants to know more about you. These data removal services are useful because it automates the removal process, which would take far more time if a person wanted to do it themselves. They also continue to monitor data broker sites, and they will continue to request data deleting if data brokers start collecting information again. However, a soft spot in data removal is that many people publish information on their accounts - like Instagram, Facebook, X and Google - that can be harvested by data brokers. Enter Block Party, a service that scans personal accounts across 12 platforms, flags privacy risks and bulk-cleans your posts, photos and connections to reduce your online exposure. This past week, DeleteMe announced it was acquiring Block Party, saying it "closes this gap by acting like a privacy expert for your social media." Although both services remain separate for now, DeleteMe plans to incorporate features into its service in the future to help individuals reclaim privacy and to protect teams from social engineering attacks. This ultimately gives DeleteMe an edge over its competitors, like Incogni and Optery, which currently focus largely on data removal and identity theft protection. Cloudwards will keep an eye on DeleteMe's offerings in the future and update the review once they announce changes to incorporate Block Party features.