Executive Privacy: The threat of identity theft increases every day. Hackers are growing more sophisticated and successful in their efforts to steal your personal information. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) conducts annual reports on the prevalence of identity theft. In 2020, there were roughly 4.7 million reports of fraud and identity theft.
Your personal information is all over the internet. Once hackers acquire your personal information, it is only a matter of time before they start using your credit cards. The good news is that you can have your personal information purged from the internet. Read on to learn all about executive privacy, and explore executive privacy solutions and the removal of personal information from the internet.
What Type of Personal Information Is Available Online? What is Executive Privacy
Your personal information is littered throughout the internet. Every time you make an online payment, your sensitive financial information is available to hackers. You enter your shipping and billing address on every order made. Worse yet, your credit card or checking account information is out there. Think about the personal information you make available on your social media accounts.
On Facebook, everyone enjoys receiving birthday wishes from all of their friends and family. Hackers and identity thieves love this because you are publicly revealing sensitive personal information. To them, your date of birth is a major piece of the puzzle in stealing your identity. The bad guys are also able to piece together answers to your security questions through social media. One of the top security questions is what your mother’s maiden name is. Fortunately for the hackers, Facebook lists your family members and some users put their maiden name in parentheses.
What Is the Threat Level?
Many people falsely assume identity theft cannot happen to them. They believe that the odds are astronomically low of it occurring. This could not be farther from the truth. In a single year, there were nearly 680,000 account takeovers. New account fraud is reaching epic proportions. This occurs when a hacker or identity thieve opens up a credit card, loan, or even a mortgage using your personal information. The total losses for new account fraud are rapidly approaching $3.5 billion per year. Almost every tool in the identity theft’s arsenal is being used more frequently.
Cyber attacks are on the rise with hackers targeting routers, cameras, supply chains, and more. Formjacking is up nearly 120% with more than 57,000 websites compromised in a single year. Not everyone is motivated by money when attempting to steal your personal information. Some want to steal your information to damage your reputation or put your family at risk.
Who Is the Most Vulnerable to Identity Theft?
While everyone is vulnerable to identity theft, some demographics are at more risk than others. Your recently deceased loved ones are at a heightened risk. The identities of more than 2.5 million deceased individuals are stolen each year. This criminal activity is referred to as ghosting. Even children are at risk of identity theft. Hackers and identity thieves love stealing a child’s social security number because it provides them with a clean slate.
There is no credit history and very few parents are monitoring their child’s social security number. Enlisted military members are common victims of identity theft. They are deployed to other parts of the world. They are less likely to receive calls from debt collectors or catch suspicious behavior on their credit reports. Also, the elderly are primary victims of online scams and hacking attempts. The elderly are not as tech-savvy as younger generations. As a group, they routinely fall for phishing schemes and other predatory online behavior.
What About Executives?
The last group that is commonly targeted by hackers is executives and Very Important Persons (VIPs). They are the main attraction for hackers because they have a lot to lose. Typically, corporate executives and VIPs earn a high salary and have more assets than the average person. In many cases, they have access to a company’s assets. This makes them an even more valuable target. Executives also carry a prominent reputation.
It is a bigger score for criminals seeking the thrill of destroying a VIP’s reputation. Because executives frequently make tough decisions, they have the potential to make more enemies and deal with disgruntled employees. It is becoming increasingly common to see a former employee attempt to tarnish his or her boss’ reputation in an online format. This means that executives are no longer under the protection of office security. Potential threats do not need a security badge for access to the executive. With personal information such as home addresses easily available online, disgruntled employees can show up at their executive’s home.
What Is Executive Privacy?
Executive privacy is a process that involves removing a VIP’s personal information from the internet. An executive privacy service is going to search for websites that collect your personal information. This is referred to as a full online information audit. Any site that collects, displays, or repackages your data is included in this search. Background check websites and data brokers are two common sources that acquire and publish an executive’s information.
Next, the executive privacy service is going to purge this information from the web. This includes removing personal data such as phone numbers, home addresses, and date of birth. The service company also removes your family members’ information. Another critical element of executive privacy is constant monitoring of the internet. Just because your identity is secure today does not mean it will be tomorrow. The executive privacy service company is going to ensure your information does not eventually become available.
Executive Privacy and Removing Personal Information from the Internet
Online threats to executives are real and growing. It is easy for hackers and other bad actors to acquire your personal information on the web. Whether it is from social media or a data broker website, your personal information is on the web. Now is the time to act and remove it. This is the most effective way to keep your information safe and maintain some sense of privacy. If you are interested in executive privacy, contact us today to speak with a specialist.
by Net Reputation