Deric Palmer

In today’s hyper-connected world, leaders are more visible — and more vulnerable — than ever. Organizations invest heavily in corporate cybersecurity, but one critical blind spot often remains: the personal digital identities of executives and senior officials.

Executives and senior leaders don’t just carry responsibility — they carry risk. While organizations deploy firewalls and systems to secure data, a more pervasive threat lurks in plain sight: Publicly Available Information (PAI) that adversaries harvest for highly targeted social engineering attacks. What makes PAI so dangerous is that adversaries don’t have to break in to steal it. The keys are already lying in plain sight.

When decorated service members are in uniform, their identities are guarded by institutions and programs that reduce risk. But when the uniform comes off, the protections fade — even though the threats do not.