How to Prepare for Doxxing Before It Happens
A Practical Guide for Employers
Most organizations don’t plan for doxxing. Not because they don’t care, but because it feels abstract, overwhelming, and hard to operationalize. Leaders know that harassment exists online and that online threats can spill into the real world. However, they often don’t know where to start or what “prepared” actually looks like.
That’s exactly why we built our doxxing scenario planning template.
The planning template is not a crisis playbook for security teams, but a practical framework any employer can use to think through risks, identify gaps, and support their people before rhetoric escalates.
Below, we’ll walk you through how to use it.
Gather data from your team of experts.
When we train organizations on doxxing preparedness, we always begin by asking what they’ve seen before.
It could be an employee who started receiving threatening emails, an advocacy staffer who was suddenly flooded with unwanted deliveries, an executive whose social media was impersonated, or a board member who received a surprise police visit.
Most teams already have pieces of the story – they just haven’t connected them yet. The template helps you do exactly that, organizing risk into four phases:
Indicators of a potential doxx
Preparing for a doxxing event
During a doxxing event
After a doxxing event
Don’t worry about completing the document perfectly – just get started.
1: Learn to recognize early warning signs
Doxxing rarely comes out of nowhere. Early indicators often include:
Targeted online harassment that feels personal or threatening
Unexplained subscriptions, deliveries, or services sent to someone’s home
Unsolicited police visits triggered by false reports
These moments are easy to dismiss individually. But together, they form patterns. As an employer, your role is to take these signals seriously, even if they feel ambiguous. The template helps your team document what they’re seeing and align when something crosses from “online noise” into real-world risk.
2: Reduce exposure before there’s a crisis
Harm occurs because sensitive information is already available, including home addresses, phone numbers, family members, financial data, old social media profiles, and public records, across hundreds of data brokers.
Preparation focuses on minimizing what can be used against someone, such as:
Removing personal information from data brokers and people-search sites
Locking down social media accounts and location sharing
Strengthening critical accounts with two-factor authentication
Preventing impersonation attempts
Establishing baseline IT security
This isn’t about making employees paranoid. It’s about closing obvious doors.
From an organizational perspective, this is also where the duty of care shows up: helping staff secure their digital lives before they become targets.
3: Decide who does what — ahead of time
One of the biggest failures we see during incidents is confusion – whose job is it to disable accounts, contact platforms, and communicate with law enforcement? Who supports the employee emotionally, including their family? Who coordinates internally?
The template prompts you to define roles in advance:
Account hibernation plans
Secure ways to share credentials
Law enforcement touchpoints
Emergency communication strategies
Temporary relocation options if physical safety becomes a concern
This way, you’re not inventing these structures while someone is actively being doxxed.
4: Plan for the moment it happens
If a doxxing event occurs, response spans multiple domains, from physical and cybersecurity to legal and HR, and beyond. The template walks through each area with concrete actions — from confirming exposed data and contacting hosting sites, to documenting doxxing and coordinating with banks, schools, or caregivers.
Importantly, it also reminds employers to think beyond the individual: gardeners, building staff, coworkers, family members — anyone who may be affected by exposed locations. This is where leadership matters most.
5: Treat recovery as part of protection
After an incident, many organizations rush to “move on.” We recommend post-event reflection instead. Structured retrospectives and continued mental health support help teams improve future responses and rebuild trust.
Doxxing is traumatic for everyone! Recovery requires time, reflection, and effort.
Why this matters for employers
Doxxing is not just an individual problem; it’s a workplace safety issue. In addition to impacting retention, performance, and trust among your team, it also creates legal, financial, and reputational exposure.
It also disproportionately affects employees who already face higher risk: women, LGBTQ+ staff, immigrants, people of color, activists, and those in visible roles.
Preparedness is one of the most meaningful ways employers can protect their people. You don’t need to predict every threat. But you can build systems that respond with clarity instead of chaos.
Don’t do this alone! Brightlines can work with you to:
Identify which employees face the greatest exposure
Reduce publicly available personal data
Monitor for escalation
Support staff through incidents
Build long-term protection strategies
