What Is Executive Privacy?

What is executive privacy? Why is it so important for your business and personal information? Get answers from an Online Privacy Expert today!

What if you and your company were more vulnerable than you could ever imagine?
In today’s world, your online identity and personal information is at constant risk of being exposed and exploited for vulnerabilities not only by the competition but by huge people search sites.

And if you are a company executive, a breach of your privacy can put the entire business at risk.

This is why executive privacy is so important. Despite this, a shocking number of execs are still asking “what is executive privacy” and “why is executive privacy so important?”

Today, we’re going to explore this topic in-depth, and you’ll learn how to protect yourself, your personal information, and the company you have sacrificed so much for.

What Is Executive Privacy? How to Safeguard Your Personal Information?

Our guide is going to help you learn more about the role of executive privacy, including how to improve your safety and your family’s safety.

First, though, we need to answer the big question: what is executive privacy, anyway?
Simply put, “executive privacy” refers to the privacy of a company’s executives. To some extent, this refers to physical privacy.

But these days, the most persistent threat to your privacy comes from the internet.
Everyone has suffered from the occasional phishing scheme or scam phone call. But you must now be wary of increasingly sophisticated attempts to secure your data and threaten your company.

Everyone has suffered from the occasional phishing scheme or scam phone call. But you must now be wary of increasingly sophisticated attempts to secure your personal information and data, sell it to people search sites and data brokers, and threaten your company.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that with the right information and a few easy safeguards, you can protect your executive privacy against 21st-century threats and avoid exposing your sensitive personal information through innocent interactions users have with your website.

Ways Your Personal Data May Get Exposed

It’s easy to dismiss threats to your online privacy. But that is because the average executive doesn’t know how easily their data may get exposed.

Typically, your data is not gathered in huge chunks by nefarious online forces. Instead, they — individuals and information-sharing companies called data brokers — gather smaller bits of data from a variety of sources and put it together in a way that reveals sensitive info about you, your family, and your company.

For example, there may be very basic information about you from a public company marketing report.
This gives someone your name, and from there, they can glean more information from your social media accounts (especially if you don’t have robust privacy measures).

That information may be enough to help them gain access to your accounts and personal devices. And at this point, they have enough information to seriously damage your reputation.

That may sound like a lot of work for the average online criminal. But someone who has it out for you or your company can hire the services of data brokers who specialize in gathering all of a person’s sensitive online information together in one package.

The Threat of Cybercrime

At this point, you may still be wondering why we are emphasizing executive privacy. The reason is simple: executives typically have access to sensitive documents, databases, emails, and more that the average employee simply doesn’t have access to.

And this threat is not theoretical.

Research compiled by Proofpoint found that a staggering 88% of businesses had executives that were targeted by cyberattacks in 2019.

Cyberattacks go beyond identity theft. Attacks on executives have unlocked access to sensitive corporate data and more.

While some of these attacks were more sophisticated than others, the sheer number of attacks emphasizes the need for solid executive privacy solutions.

Risks To Your Home and Family

So far, the threats we have described seem kind of abstract. While attacks on your business are certainly frightening, you may not immediately think of these attacks as threats to your family.
However, that all changed with COVID-19. For safety concerns, many companies began offering more options for staff and executives to work from home.

And even when the COVID threat seemed to lessen, many companies continued offering work-from-home options because it saves money and achieves more efficient employee performance results.
While working from home is a great option, the simple fact is that your address is one of the easiest bits of information for criminals and criminal data brokers to receive.

And once they have your address, it is easy to break into your home at any time, day or night.
Fortunately, you can begin proactively exploring executive privacy options and solutions today. This can protect all manner of personal data, including your address.

In doing so, you can keep you and your family that much safer.

Different Kinds of Online Threats

Earlier, we mentioned that online threats to your privacy were becoming more sophisticated. But what do more sophisticated threats actually look like?

One popular method of attack is known as spear phishing. This involves collecting bits of personal information about an executive one bit at a time, much like someone spearing for fish in the ocean.

Think of it like this: there is a lot of information available about you online that seems innocent enough. This might include where your children go to school, tragedies your family has survived, where you last worked, and so on.

A dedicated scammer might impersonate someone from your child’s school or perhaps impersonate a charity related to a previous tragedy.

From there, they may send your digital correspondence, including emails with attachments.

All it takes is opening the wrong attachment to unleash malware that will send all the sensitive data from your device to third parties.

There Be Whales Here on people search sites

Another common kind of attack is known as a whaling attack. This is a high-risk, high-reward fraud technique where someone outright impersonates you or another executive. A whaling attack targets high-level executives.

If their impersonation is successful, a fraudster might be able to get someone to disclose sensitive information. Worst case, they may be able to get someone (perhaps even you) to wire funds to a third party.

It’s easy enough to uncover this fraud after the attack. But once the information is disclosed or the money is sent, the damage is done.

Taking Protection To the Next Level

Now you have an answer to the question “what is executive privacy?” Now, you probably have another question: “what can I do to protect my privacy?”

At InternetReputation, we pride ourselves on our ability to monitor executive privacy and prevent threats before they even happen. Our suite of executive privacy solutions is unmatched.

To see what we can do to protect you, your company, and your family, contact us today or call InternetReputation at 941-259-4554.

Our executive privacy solutions have all the benefits of safeguarding your personal information and your business marketing activities.