#004: Cybersecurity Girl on Digital Hygiene, Safe Online Dating, Sextortion, and Apps That Spy

Caitlin Sarian (00:02)
We've been in cyber warfare with so many different countries, specifically Russia and China, forever.

at least for the last five years, and it's been really bad, but you don't see it. So it's like out of sight, out of mind.

Siara (00:11)
Yeah.

Siara (00:12)
I think everyone has that feeling where they're like, how much does my phone know about me? Can you just tell us?

what you mean, just explain 101, how are apps spying on us and what control do we have over it.

Caitlin Sarian (00:25)
do you know what's not convenient is getting hacked and losing your accounts losing money or having your identity stolen. that's not convenient. Do you know how many hours you're going to be spending trying to figure it all out after and

the worry and the fear and everything that's not worth it to me and no one really seems to get that until it happens to them

Siara Singleton (00:41)
Hey, welcome back to the Logout Podcast. Today we are talking about cybersecurity, which is a personal favorite topic of mine. Now, thou shall not judge, but I'll admit I get a little judgy about others' digital hygiene. I physically cringe when people tell me that they reuse most of their passwords or that they hop on public wifi without using a VPN. But the worst is when they post personal details on social without realizing how traceable they are.

just stresses me out.

think only about 36 % of adults in the US use a password manager or something and so I just worry. But the judgment is probably not warranted because I honestly don't think we as a society have made personal cybersecurity as much of a conversation as it needs to be. Like in the general zeitgeist, we need to be talking about it more. Otherwise people won't understand how critical it is. I don't think I would even care about my personal cybersecurity as much as I do if it weren't for my background.

I've always leaned privacy conscious, what really changed things for me was working in the cybersecurity industry.

During that time, I think I learned...

enough to have the healthy amount of fear that I have today. I learned about bad actors, how they work, what their incentives are, what hackers really look like in practice, and a little bit about what is happening on the dark web. Once you learn that information, it will change you, I promise. I also learned about what businesses are doing to protect themselves. And I think anywhere that you are in the tech industry or otherwise, finance, healthcare, you name it, cybersecurity is never irrelevant. It is a constant conversation.

it really fascinating, but over the years it's made me hyper aware of how I handle my own data and then consequently deeply concerned about how casual most people are about handling theirs. I focused mostly on the commercial side of cybersecurity, so I've seen firsthand that businesses are spending billions of dollars to protect themselves every year. They know what's at stake, but do you? Do your parents? Do your kids?

Just to put it in perspective, in 2024 alone, scammers and cybercriminals stole over 16 billion from everyday people. And to scare you even more, that's actually a 33 % jump from 2023. If you're wondering if the explosion of AI is making that number skyrocket, the answer is yes. so yeah, I think as consumers, or humans rather, we have a long way to go. And I'm of the opinion that protecting the data of collective humanity is more important than any single business entity out there.

That said, think the lean towards business for cybersecurity conversations makes sense though, right? Businesses have a lot more on the surface to lose when it comes to bad digital hygiene. A business can easily go under from a bad breach. Look at 23 and me they experienced a data breach in 2023. And that was a major contributor to their recent downfall. It wasn't the only one, but that hit them where it hurt.

So businesses know investing in cyber security just simply makes sense. For consumers, I think a lot of people don't necessarily think it's a big deal to protect themselves.

They might think, I'm not important enough to be targeted or I don't have anything to hide. But the reality is that scams are getting more sophisticated. AI is making it easier to weaponize your personal info. And once your data is out there, you probably can't get it back. You do not have to be rich or famous or a business to be exploited. You just have to exist. It's also worth noting that businesses benefit when we're not concerned about our data. Our data is like water to them. It's a resource, a plentiful one, but

It's finite and they do need it to do what they're doing. The AI companies that you hear about every day are nothing without publicly available data. The hackers who are most successful probably bought your data on the dark web and the advertisers who sometimes creep you out probably purchased it from a data broker. So your data is valuable no matter who you are. But you do in most cases have the power to protect it.

That's why I'm so excited about today's guest.

Caitlin also known as Cybersecurity Girl, is one of the few people in the space who have dedicated their work to consumer cybersecurity. She worked in cybersecurity consulting for nearly a decade. She led global cybersecurity education at TikTok, and now she's built a community of over 1.2 million followers. She helps people like you and me stay informed, protect ourselves, and actually understand what's going on. And she makes it make sense. She simplifies it. So if you're someone who cares about your data, but maybe hasn't taken that next step,

I think you're gonna learn a lot of really helpful information in this episode. Let's meet Cybersecurity Girl.

Siara (05:11)
hi Caitlin, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Caitlin Sarian (05:14)
I'm good, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Siara (05:16)
So you are Cybersecurity Girl. When you type in Cybersecurity Girl into Google, your name comes up. I would love to know, when did you realize cybersecurity was your calling?

Caitlin Sarian (05:27)
you

Yeah, so a lot of people don't realize this. I have been in cyber for like 11 years. So I've been working in cyber. was not like an influencer. I've been like in the trenches for a while. And actually before I started, I had no idea what cyber security was. I was an engine and mechanical aerospace, mechanical engineer. And when I graduated with my master's degree, I was like, I can't, I had done three amazing internships all at like large companies like GE and Abbott and Chevron. And I was looking for like that forever home of a job. Like I had seen my parents stay at the same

Siara (05:44)
you

Caitlin Sarian (05:57)
kind of jobs and roles, so that's what I was assuming. And every internship I took, was like, I just can't imagine myself here for more than like five years. I think it's really interesting, but like, I think I'm gonna get bored. And my cousin who was also an engineer, she had gone into technical consulting and she was like, you can try different things. So I was applying as a technical consultant. And when I applied at UI, they were like, hey, are you interested in cyber? And I had no idea what cybersecurity was. Like literally not, it's like, okay, sure. And I'm a yes.

Siara (06:00)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (06:25)
person

I would say yes and then I try to figure it out in the background and learn because I love learning and I just figured if I didn't like cyber security consulting I could just move on to a different technical consulting role but in my head similar to what most people thought think when they think of cyber security they think of hackers and I was like you know I'm not good at coding but I'm not gonna tell this this lady this because I obviously wanted the job and so I was like you know we're gonna try it I talked to my parents are like yeah I'm pretty sure like this is a new thing like you should really kind of go for it

Siara (06:48)
Yeah

Caitlin Sarian (06:55)
and I learned everything on the job, which is one of the reasons why I...

you know, decided to start this channel was because everyone whenever I said how I work in cyber they're like, you must be some freaky genius. You're going to hack into my phone. And I'm like, that is literally the farthest from what I do. And so that was one of the main reasons why I started the channel. But yeah, I mean, I realized I was free with my calling because like I said, I get bored really easily and cyber security is constantly changing. You have to keep like reinventing yourself and, you know.

Siara (07:23)
Thank you.

Caitlin Sarian (07:26)
learning new things, new areas. And that's what always kept me there. Like it keeps me here because it's so cool. Like there's you can never learn something and be good for the rest of, know, even the year. Like you have to constantly learn and love learning. And that's why I've always been so entertained with cybersecurity. And I don't think it's ever going to go away. But it's just such an amazing thing. And then with cybersecurity girls specifically, like I said, one of the reasons was just demystified to the public what cybersecurity was as a career. Like no one

Siara (07:46)
Mm-hmm

Caitlin Sarian (07:56)
understood what it is and we also need so many more people, all types of people to get into cyber because like I said, I don't code and I've been in cyber for now 11 years. And so was to demystify what cyber security was, really get more like diversity, specifically women in cyber so they could see themselves in this career. And then the third was also to educate the general public. And I will say, I didn't really realize how important the third pillar was until I started really getting into it. The main goal was to just get more

Siara (08:23)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (08:25)
people into cyber and then it kind of just kept growing from there.

Siara (08:27)
Okay.

Yeah, because you're always publicly just sharing all of these great tips and warnings and you just kind of give it out all you don't gatekeep it. And so what is driving you to do that? What's driving you? Do you feel like there's a knowledge gap?

Caitlin Sarian (08:47)
there's definitely a knowledge gap. mean, so cyber security started out like back in 1970 ish. And it was really started to to protect corporations and intellectual property for corporations. And and it was started because of cyber warfare. Right. We were trying not to have like Russia and China like steal our intellectual property, especially when we started moving all of our company stuff online. And so that's why it started. And I mean, also in the 70s, we never thought like people were going to start, you know, being able to like have their entire computer on their phone.

and carried around with them. So, cyber security really started from a corporate standpoint and it still is so corporate because of that. But I started realizing that there's literally no one to educate the general public on everything about tech and cyber and data protection and just protecting themselves and their loved ones. And there's so many threats out there that it just like it was needed and it still is needed. And so that's kind of how it started and why I think I don't want to gatekeep. I want to be as transparent as possible because I

Siara (09:17)
Mm-hmm.

Ahem.

Caitlin Sarian (09:45)
truly feel like there's no one out there doing this and it like it like needs to be done and I don't know why I just there's no point of like gatekeeping like we all are in the same boat together like kids are given technology before they can speak and if there's a way that I can like make things simple to help people like that's all it needs I mean it's cybersecurity is really not as complex for the general public as we make it seem to be like implement like three or four key basic tips

Siara (10:10)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (10:14)
it's like a game changer and you're protected pretty much like 99 from 99 % of the threats. And so as long as I continue to like keep those going and like explain in different ways and shapes, depending on, you know, the audience, like that's, that's all like that. That's my goal. And also I truly feel like if you're protecting yourself from a personal standpoint, you're more empowered to protect your company as well, because from a company perspective, I don't know, do you work, do you work at like a normal nine to five?

Siara (10:36)
Yeah.

Yes, yes, and I actually used to work in the cybersecurity industry, it's always been a priority for me, but yeah, go ahead.

Caitlin Sarian (10:45)
amazing.

Yeah, so I mean, from a corporate perspective, all of their trainings are really like check the box trainings. You're like, well, because it's like required by certain laws, et cetera. And they're also like not explaining to you why it's important. Like they're just trying to tell you to do something because they need you to protect the company. Whereas my stance is like, well, they don't no one care. If you're not in cybersecurity, why would you care unless it's like a direct threat to you and people don't have those direct threats until it's it's like already too late for them, like if they've already gotten breached. And so

Siara (11:03)
Hmm

Caitlin Sarian (11:20)
being able to explain it from a user perspective as to why it's important for them like personally is so much more important than like shoving it down people's throats from a corporate perspective.

Siara (11:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and bringing in folks and trying to motivate them to protect their businesses can be really tough. I've, you know, I've seen it. I've worked from the side of, you know, how can we motivate these employees to care about their specifically password security. The password management industry was where I was. And I'm, you know, I'm actually curious if you think that.

these conversations that are usually focused on businesses, that you don't really see consumers having the conversation about their personal cybersecurity as much. Do you think that there just needs to be more conversations? There should be really more questions people are asking. Or do you think securing the businesses are enough to keep everyone safe? Because usually the businesses are the ones that are harnessing the technology that people are relying on to keep them safe.

Caitlin Sarian (12:19)
Yeah, I mean

I think it's both, but I personally, because I'm biased now, think it's like the customer or the consumer should really care about their data more than the company. mean, who's going to care more about yourself than you? Why would the company be really... mean, to be fair, the only reason why companies care is so they avoid fines and legal issues. They don't actually care. Because cybersecurity is so expensive.

Siara (12:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (12:50)
It's an expense to every company and it's a large expense. They wouldn't want to throw so much money at this if they didn't need to. I'm not going to lie. At the end of the day, most businesses are about the bottom line and cybersecurity is not selling anything. It's not really protecting the bottom line besides keeping you out of trouble from a legal perspective and also keeping you out of hot water if there was a data breach because then you also lose sales.

Siara (12:52)
huh.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (13:16)
companies really don't care about you as much as you think they're kind of like forced to care from a cybersecurity perspective. And also like as a consumer, again, very, very basic tips like passwords and multifactor authentication, like super, super basic tips that we make seem in our head because we've not been in cyber and no one's ever talked about it. Like it's confusing, those three or four basic tips are not as difficult as we make it seem. And for some reason, like I'll give you an example, like the news and media, like don't,

Siara (13:39)
Right.

Caitlin Sarian (13:44)
No one's grasping how important cyber security is, right? So I personally believe that once you train and educate people on how important it is from a personal perspective, they're start realizing how important it is from a corporate perspective. But the issue is like, no one understands the gravity of like how cyber security impacts, it like underpins everything in society. like.

Siara (14:07)
Hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (14:08)
We've been in cyber warfare with so many different countries, specifically Russia and China, forever. Like for the last, at least for the last five years, really, and it's been really bad, but you don't see it. So it's like out of sight, out of mind.

Siara (14:18)
Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (14:19)
people aren't even realizing like their actions, like, okay, for example, like if some guy is an admin at a critical infrastructure company, and if he's like the one in charge of, I don't know, like water and gas, right? Like if his password is not as, is not secure, then these cyber warfare,

fair

like countries can come in and just completely tamper with everything that we do. it's not even like, it's like protect yourself, protect your government, protect like your corporations. It's, but it starts with protecting yourself. Like, cause you don't, you don't really, you're not going to care as much when you're like, protect your company. Like, but it

Siara (14:42)
Hehe.

Right. Yeah, the motivation,

it won't be quite as strong.

Caitlin Sarian (15:00)
Yeah, no, but like the news just like doesn't pick it up. Like I hired a PR person and like.

There's a lot of influencers that go on like talk shows and stuff that have legitimately like not as much to offer in terms of like cybersecurity. They've not, there's none that go into cybersecurity, but like in terms of like, you know, helping in general and like, no people just like don't know what to do with me. And I'm like, all I'm trying to do, give me five minutes to help educate your users on how to be safe. Like that's all I'm asking. And like, they just don't get it. They don't, they're like, it's not relevant. Like, you know, we have elections, we have this. I'm like, you're okay. You're speaking of.

Siara (15:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah

Caitlin Sarian (15:34)
The elections were in a complete repeat of like you say the same thing over and over again. You can't spare five minutes to help your users or the same was like, there was all of the hurricanes, which obviously all these are super important. But let's be real, if anyone's watching the news every day, it's the same thing over and over. You're not really learning. You're scaring your consumers. Why can't we take five minutes to talk about how to protect yourself in general? I don't know what it is. It's a very weird world.

Siara (15:55)
fear.

Caitlin Sarian (16:04)
we

live in but like I'm just trying to like continue to push out as much as possible because like the news isn't picking it up nothing's picking it up and it won't be picked up until like there's a data breach and then when they do pick it up it's like again it's that fear mongering of like you're all your stuff's gonna be breached like but it's not telling people like how to fix it and like what they do in the future so

Siara (16:23)
Right.

Yeah, and it's simple, oftentimes very simple fixes. Like, can we talk about passwords for a minute? Because circa 2020, I was someone who would slip unsolicited, like, password advice to people. Someone would say something, I'd say, hey, maybe you shouldn't do that. And I found myself kind of backing off on that a bit, because if I learned anything, it's that convenience is

Caitlin Sarian (16:29)
various.

Yeah.

Siara (16:51)
way more of a priority for most folks than privacy is. And so, you know, people will give up their privacy if it means it's easier to do so, but oftentimes if you create the habit, it can be very easy. So what would you share to the audience about choosing between convenience and privacy and maybe we don't even have to choose?

because I think that's the thing that is really tempting, even if it's like, you know, not reading terms and conditions or, you know, agreeing to cookies because it's faster, give us some wisdom, some cybersecurity wisdom there.

Caitlin Sarian (17:32)
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it is. I think they're both aspects are convenient, but because we're unsure of how the other one plays out, we just like go with what we know and what we know is wrong. Like, password managers are super, super simple. If anything, it's way more. It's like way better than having the same password over and over again.

Siara (17:41)
Ugh.

Caitlin Sarian (17:50)
And the other thing is like, do you know what's not convenient is getting hacked and like having like losing your accounts and like losing money or having your identity stolen. Like that's not convenient. Do you know how many hours you're going to be spending trying to figure it all out after and like

the worry and the fear and everything like that's not worth it to me and and no one really seems to get that until it happens to them and then and advocates which is really unfortunate because I'm

Siara (18:10)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (18:13)
to like people message me all the time being like my account got hacked and I was like clearly you weren't listening to any of my messages like I can help you to an extent but like you know it's it's really hard to do once it's gone so

Siara (18:25)
Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (18:26)
I mean, I think we need to get stop, like stop the narrative like of it's it's more convenient just to do this versus like actually be protected, protecting yourself because.

Once you learn how to protect yourself, it's actually more convenient to do that. Like it takes an extra second to like reject cookies. it's like, either accept or no. And what happens is a lot of people at the beginning when this was the thing, when you said, no, couldn't access the website. Now there's laws where you can't do that anymore. So there's no downside to pressing no. There's actually no difference in like timing when you press yes versus no, or like yes, reject. But people just are prone to pressing yes because they're used

Siara (18:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (19:06)
it like stop stop I mean that's that's not even difference of convenience and same with passwords so

Siara (19:13)
I think I lost you for a second there.

Hmm.

Let's see.

Caitlin Sarian (19:16)
it's actually more convenient to be protecting yourself but because we were never taught that and we're just so used to doing the same thing that we've always done in the past. But if we start changing that thinking, which is what I hope to do with some of my videos, then it'll make the world a lot easier in a better place. Safer.

Siara (19:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I agree. You mentioned companies not, it's about the bottom line. It's about protecting. Really, it's insurance. And so you really need to care about your own data and your own privacy to be motivated enough to do so efficiently. But I do want to talk about how you feel about companies caring about data, because sometimes it's not against the law to be a little bit invasive with consumers' So...

what are your thoughts on how do you decide if a company is properly taking care of their users or the purchasers of their product? There's so many different ways that company can have access to data, so really just consumers in general.

Caitlin Sarian (20:13)
Yeah, I mean, so what happened was it's not like they all started out being like, I want everyone's data, right? Back when, you know, the internet first came to be, we all were kind of like, sign up for everything. Everything's free. Every account, do everything. like data was king back then. Like literally you wanted as much data as possible because then you're able to market, sell, et cetera. You could sell the data.

like sell to a person and also sell the data. it wasn't like a bad thing. Like data privacy was never a bad thing. was like, it's normal. Like it's like kind of the cost of business when you go to a free website, they have access to your information. especially when you're like actively signing up and like, for example, when I first started like doing my account, was you know, emailing out tips and tricks and I used a platform and that platform was like, I only asked for like three or four key questions about people. I didn't

Siara (20:36)
Mmm.

Caitlin Sarian (21:02)
because

of that I work in data privacy, I didn't want all this data on them. But what I found out was a platform was still collecting way more data than I anticipated. So like for a small business, and you can't really fix it, it's just part of the platform. And from a small business perspective, like people don't know what to do with that. Like actually, to be honest, small businesses are probably the worst when it comes to data privacy because they don't have legal teams, they don't really understand, they don't have enough data where it's like gonna be a

Siara (21:17)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (21:31)
issue. But the big companies like the big fortune 500 companies are constantly under scrutiny because they have the most data but they have you know legal teams and governance teams and people like protecting it and making sure that it's allowed. I don't think they're trying to do it maliciously. I do think like obviously the more data you have the better. And again most companies especially the large ones that have been around forever like they have data from like you know 10-20 years.

Siara (21:48)
Mmm.

Caitlin Sarian (21:58)
ago

and that was normal like it wasn't illegal and it's only recently where the data privacy laws started coming about and people started getting educated on like now consumers have more rights to their data before you didn't have rights to your data you're using a free service or collecting the data you're inputting your own data so you're actively giving them permission right but now that there's tons of data privacy laws giving consumers the ability to have rights over their own data it's getting to be a little

bit tricky. I don't think any company out there maliciously being like let's collect every piece of data.

Siara (22:27)
Mm.

Okay.

Caitlin Sarian (22:32)
think that you know it helps the bottom line, it helps with sales, it helps with a lot of other stuff and to be honest

most businesses, would say 99 % of businesses want to make money unless they're like nonprofits and even nonprofits want to make money and then like donate it. So it's interesting because like, you know, when you go to

right, even

Siara (22:52)

Caitlin Sarian (22:53)
know it's cheaper, you're sacrificing most likely quality of food, but

accepting that. And it's the same with like

Siara (22:58)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (23:01)
when you enter your information on a site, you're kind of accepting that they're gonna take your data, especially if it's a free service. And so I think there's a balance, right? As much as I wanna be like, yes, consumers, we deserve our own data. Businesses also have to make money and everything that we do pretty much online is free unless you're signing up for a protection service. so think about, they need to have business as usual, they need to be able to keep the lights on. There's only so much that they can do. So I think there's a balance.

Most companies act maliciously when it comes to data.

Siara (23:33)
You've actually touted brands like Apple for their new security updates to saying hey, like, let's get on those software updates because they really are protecting you. So I'm really curious about, the new Apple intelligence features. They're kind of making the choice between privacy, in my opinion, privacy and convenience hard because we're seeing features like Apple giving you the too long didn't read version of your inbox in a single glance. That sounds great.

The skeptic

risk averse side of me is saying, okay, so to do that, you have to be reading all of my emails, all of my texts. And that feels, as someone with nothing to hide, I'm like, whoa, I don't know if I'm ready for that. I even had Siri summarize a photo that someone sent me through my headphones, and that threw me off a bit because I didn't really realize.

Caitlin Sarian (24:08)
every evening.

Siara (24:29)
that Apple was really doing that. And so I kind of did because there was a point where you can search in your photo gallery, can search dog and all of the pictures of my dog will come up. So I knew that there was some level, but that was an alarm moment for me. So I'm curious to get your thoughts of like with all of these new conveniences, how should we weigh the trade off between convenience and privacy? And what's the best way to make that choice?

Caitlin Sarian (24:55)
Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think that's a personal issue that everyone should make. Because for me, I'm not going to have them read my emails. I don't want them to. Not because I don't trust them as a company. I just don't really want them to. If anything, I think Apple is the most... They really value privacy, which is why I love using them so much. sometimes I use a PC and sometimes I use a Mac for computer. I mean, obviously I have an iPhone. I swear by my iPhone. But there's different things for different purposes.

Siara (25:21)
Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (25:25)
You

have to be able to understand the consequences. And I think right now most people just blindly accept a lot of things. Apple does give you the ability to remove a lot of stuff for apps. Like, okay, do you want this app to track you? Do you want this app

you? Do you want this app to share your location or have your location off when you're not on the app? But the issue is that people don't know how to even do that or that's even an option. So I

I want to do is let people

know

that one that this is happening in the background. It's not necessarily Apple's fault. It's not Apple's fault at all. It's not anyone's fault. But at least they're giving you the option to say, hey, like, you know, this is a normal app. I use it all the time. I don't mind it having my location. I never have any of my apps track location unless it's like Uber off the app. But like you have to determine what is important to you. Now, there was also a new feature that allowed Apple to

Siara (26:12)
Right.

Caitlin Sarian (26:21)
warn you or delete pictures that they thought that were like getting sent to you that they thought had nudity in it. Which means that they're scanning every picture that's getting sent to you. And I was like, obviously I am not comfortable. Also like who's just getting a random nude that doesn't know that, you know? Like how would you not know that? Who gets unsolicited nudes? Like no one. don't know.

Siara (26:28)
Huh.

Wow.

Yeah, unsolicited. Hopefully, hopefully

no one is getting unsolicited nudes We do not support that.

Caitlin Sarian (26:50)
Yeah, no, but it was like

it was through airdrop and text messages and like that means they're literally scanning every airdrop and text message photo that's getting sent to me and like I don't feel comfortable with that even if I have nothing to hide right like I would just rather air on the side of Caution I don't everyone think I don't have anything to hide totally fine, but like is it needed it takes two seconds for you to turn off that feature And it's I guarantee you you're not getting unsolicited nudes like not guarantee. I can't guarantee anything but like

Siara (27:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (27:19)
99 % sure that you're probably not getting unsolicited nudes. So I mean, it's just interesting I really think people need to weigh it out But the issue is they don't even know what to weigh out or what it is happening It just because again, no one's talking about it and just only me that's I feel like I'm like people that are like by the way This is happening. You should probably check it

Siara (27:31)
Right.

I'm listening.

love seeing your posts on my feed because it's always something that I'm like, either I thought it might be happening and you confirm it, or I had no idea, or I'm like, yes, more people need to know this. And it's just, it's very valuable. One of the things that you've said is your apps are spying on you.

So I think everyone has that feeling where they're like, how much does my phone know about me? I'm a little freaked out. Can you just tell us?

what you mean, just explain 101, how are apps spying on us and what control do we have over it.

Caitlin Sarian (28:14)
Yeah,

so I think a lot of people like again apps are like part of our daily life like I have way too many apps on my phone But every time you download an app right you always get that notification saying like allow and you're like not even thinking you're like Just give me the app and so you press allow I mean I used to press allow for everything and then it wasn't until like you know for three or four years ago I was like my gosh now they're collecting everything they collect Location and there's always three options right you can have it have your location when you're not using the app

You can have it only have your location when you are using the app and then you can have it None at all like you will never share they also have access to your photos most of the time like I would say majority of apps have access to your photos and it's the same thing You can manage you can give them access to certain photos which like on Instagram I do on tik-tok I do I'm like I don't need all my photos I don't need them to have all my photos And then every time I need upload I just like press manage and add the photo that they need Where you can have all?

photos

or you can have no photos. So there's always three or four options, but it's really easy to do if you go in like the settings and privacy and then you can see like it's the camera. They have access to camera, access to photos, access to microphones and access to locations. And a majority of the people when you download the app, you allow all of it, right? You're never like manage you're not going to take that extra step and you don't even realize that it's an issue. And most people can argue it's not an issue. Like no one's after me.

Why do we need to give all these people all of our data? We just don't. And what people don't realize is in the future, this data can probably be used against them. say for example, you know, you're giving Google Maps your location constantly, which most people do. They're able to see how fast you drive, where you're going all the time. And then eventually like we have AI now to use that data for good. We don't even know this, but like maybe insurance companies

Siara (29:34)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (29:58)
are gonna start using that data to start upping your insurance and speeding or you know I don't think people realize that they're like what's point and right now we're not seeing any issues with giving everyone our data but I really believe that in the future there's gonna be a lot of kind of big brother issues with like AI

Siara (30:00)
Mmm.

Caitlin Sarian (30:16)
completely scanning your life and assessing how much of issues you have. even with healthcare, it's really interesting to think, obviously, as a data privacy person, I'm very skeptical, but all of this is very accurate and true. And so if you can just limit the amount of data, it takes maybe 20, 30 minutes and just go in and fix certain settings. Don't give every app access to all your photos, right?

Siara (30:24)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (30:44)
apps

that you don't use maybe whatsapp you want to do because you always send photos to your friends fine but you don't need to give it to everyone so the apps really are technically spying on you because at any point in time they could get your location they can get your photos they can get anything if you have given them access which it's usually blanket statement that you give them access when you first download the app

Siara (30:58)
Mm-hmm.

Something that you mentioned recently was how users on LinkedIn could turn off LinkedIn training its AI on their content, which I think is really important, especially for those of us who are putting in a lot of work into content creation like yourself. I think it's a really important conversation, but I also am curious of your opinion on the automatic opting in of

Caitlin Sarian (31:13)
Yeah.

Siara (31:30)
certain new tools because for a lot of different platforms AI is now, you know, the hot new thing that every consumer facing product is working in. They're kind of sending you a terms and condition, either notification or an email, and most people aren't taking the time to actually read through it and understand what they're agreeing to. So I guess I have a two part question. The first question is, are you someone who reads all of the terms and conditions before you sign it?

Caitlin Sarian (31:50)
Right.

Siara (31:58)
Okay, me neither.

Caitlin Sarian (31:59)
My parents, my dad's a lawyer

and so is my brother and I'm like, I'm always like, should I read this? And I'm like, heck no. I'm like, I'll figure it out. I can, I can figure out like what settings are looking at later, but yeah, I don't, it's bad.

Siara (32:06)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Audience tips. tool that I'm like, okay, they really could have a lot of access to things, I will sometimes just copy and paste it into ChatGPT and be like, what am I agreeing to right now? I want to start doing that a little bit more often. then, yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (32:21)
Yeah.

I have been doing that too. Or I just look and say like,

this company just updated their terms of service. Can you please find it and review it and let me know if there's any red flags from a personal privacy and security perspective? Yeah.

Siara (32:36)
Mm-hmm. Right. Would you

ever consider deleting an app or getting off of a platform if you felt like it actually was going past a boundary that you're not comfortable with?

Caitlin Sarian (32:50)
I think that's like a risk-based decision for me probably. I mean if it's like really bad I would definitely be like get it, you know, but

Siara (32:57)
Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (32:59)
As of right now, mean, I also don't download, I mean, I have a lot of apps, but it's more like business apps and I don't download anything sketchy and like the Apple store is also I will say, a lot better than like the Google play store or any of like the Android. I don't know what the stores are because in terms of, it's really hard to get an app approved through the app store. they have a lot of security measures in place to make sure that the app is legit and you know, what it's collecting and to really understand what you're doing with the app. Whereas I think the Google

Siara (33:06)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Caitlin Sarian (33:26)
Play Store is a lot easier to get sketchy apps through. So I because I don't have an Android I have an Apple phone. I just feel like I'm I kind of trust most of the apps on that as of right now.

Siara (33:38)
And then on the phones are spying on us topic, I think most people would love to know once and for all, are phones listening to us via the microphone specifically? Do you know?

Caitlin Sarian (33:52)
I mean, I think there's definitely a possibility. I don't have like certainty on anything. I'm obviously skeptic just like everyone else is. Now, I will say this. A lot of people don't realize like when they're talking about something, your actions speak louder than words, right? So like say for example, you're like talking about a vacation to Bermuda. You subconsciously when you look at things on Instagram or whatever, you'll start looking and doing little things that end up kind of guiding

Siara (33:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (34:21)
any search engine back to, she's looking at this, right? whether it's like, you looked at flights or you looked at images of wherever you're trying to do. you kind of subconsciously do things without you even realizing because it's so second nature for us to pick up our phone and be like, like, hey, I think we should go to the Bahamas. we should check that out. And you kind of maybe go on Groupon and see if there's anything in the Bahamas or you go on a ticket app site and you change the location to wherever you're going or and I

think those little cookie crumbs that you don't even realize are happening lead to your phone kind of knowing what's going on because again, people think AI is like this new thing. has been going, AI has been being used for years, at least five years. And so that's, mean, that's how like marketing has improved so much. But I think people are like, my gosh, we literally just talked about, you know, IVF and I'm getting stuff for babies stuff on my phone. It's like you, I guarantee you, you weren't just

Siara (34:50)
Hmm.

Right.

Caitlin Sarian (35:15)
talking about it maybe someone sent you a link or you don't even think there's so many factors that go into it so take that with a grain of salt but I also think if you have your Siri on which I have my Siri on I think it's convenient sometimes I turn it off just depends on the day but like if you have your Siri on you have to be okay with it maybe picking random things up

Siara (35:19)
Mm-hmm.

Right. And all of your IoT connected devices as well in your home. I'm a Google Home person, I sometimes wonder, like, But yeah, that's great insight. What are your thoughts on incognito browsing? It's not really private, is it?

Caitlin Sarian (35:42)
Yeah.

No, and that's another myth that people have is like if I go on incognito like no one's gonna know I'm on this and I'm like no incognito browser is literally I mean it's it's for your use like I always say okay if you want to get your boyfriend significant other girlfriend whatever a present and you don't want them knowing and you're you share a computer or you're on the same wi-fi that's the other thing if you're on the same wi-fi it's the same ip address so they're they're gonna get ads for anything that you look up right

Siara (36:23)
Mmm.

Caitlin Sarian (36:23)
So

if you're like, I want to be secretive about the gift I'm giving, I would go in incognito mode because your IP is not remembering where you go. But that doesn't mean that the sites that you're going to aren't going to remember. And yes, they don't take as much data, but they still track who's going. And so.

Siara (36:38)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (36:42)
Incognito is really for your devices, your specific like, don't like, know, my boyfriend plays golf and I wanted to get him a present and I, you know, we, comes over to my house. I go over to his house. I'm going to search for this president, like multiple times, try to figure out the best costs. And because of that, he's going to probably start getting ads if I don't go on incognito mode, because that IP has been going to that website and we're sharing an IP at the house. So incognito is great. If you're trying to, it's more for you personally, it is nothing.

really to do with actual website not remembering where you go.

Siara (37:15)
And then Bluetooth, that's something that I was surprised by in some of your content. You mentioned Bluetooth. And then I learned from another source that people in politics don't use Bluetooth. So what are the risks there as someone who uses Bluetooth every single day?

Caitlin Sarian (37:27)
No.

Good?

Yeah,

well first of all I'm like a conspiracy theorist in the sense of like I'm like I'm starting to think that Bluetooth is just really bad like air pods Not air pods, but any like Bluetooth headphones. I'm like paranoid about I've been going back to like the old school And I feel super dumb wearing them, but I don't want to microwave my brain Anyways, that's completely besides the point Bluetooth is super super easy to hack into and every you know government employee and stuff that I've said like the first thing they say is like turn off Bluetooth never enable Bluetooth it just really

Siara (37:39)
Mmm.

Caitlin Sarian (38:00)
easy to get into and once they're in it say for example you're you're gonna take a call a personal private call on your Bluetooth headphones like people can intercept that and listen to the call so that's why government officials can't use that if you see a lot of officials they literally put headphones into their like plug it into their phone and like even when you go abroad right one of the tips they always used to give me was don't ever have Bluetooth going abroad and I was like I mean

Siara (38:10)
Wow.

Wow, that's scary.

Caitlin Sarian (38:27)
But that's only if you're I don't know. It depends on what you're doing. If you're not having really intense conversations, again, it's a risk-based approach, but I would just try to avoid using Bluetooth anything.

Siara (38:36)
Mm-hmm.

Okay. Okay. So I would love to actually talk a little bit about dating safety. I have viewers, a lot of young viewers, but you know, whatever age you are, people are dating. And I think that I've seen a lot of practices, I've probably done things where it was risky, it wasn't very smart. And you share a lot of really helpful information for that. So

Caitlin Sarian (39:04)
Yeah.

Siara (39:06)
First, I would love to know what information you would never share, let's say with a first date or maybe first, second, third date. This is essentially a new person, a stranger. What would you never share?

Caitlin Sarian (39:17)
Yeah, I mean it depends on where you meet them to right like if you're meeting them on an app or a social media If you're actually meeting them in person don't ever share where you live at the beginning Don't share like your home location don't send a picture with like the because like a lot of photos have your location on it's like very easy to get I would just in an open area with like a public place with people Maybe not like Central Park at night, you know a safe public

like

place like a coffee shop and really get to know them. And the other thing is if people are sharing a lot about themselves on the first day, that's usually a red flag or a lot about themselves on apps, right? Like.

Why is this person, like just start questioning, why are you sharing all this stuff? Because there's a lot of issues, right? There's dating safety for the normal people, and then there's online dating scams. And so for dating safety for normal people, I would just try to limit the data that you share. You can talk about little quirks that you do or certain things that you do, but don't give your address. your birthday. You don't need to give them a lot. I will say, think there's more issues with dating online.

Siara (40:05)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (40:20)
online

scams that I've seen. But I know, I don't know if young people really even get a lot of online scammers. I think it's more of an adult population because I don't think young people really have a lot of money to give out to scammers.

Siara (40:26)
Hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (40:32)
But yeah, think

Siara (40:32)
True.

Caitlin Sarian (40:33)
you just limit what you share with them, until you really get to know them. Or if you have a mutual friend, that's great, ask your mutual friend. The other thing is I would try to FaceTime them too. Don't waste your time. When I was in the dating world still, before I met my amazing boyfriend, I started realizing, okay, I would go on coffee dates or lunch dates or whatever.

Siara (40:45)
⁓ smart.

Caitlin Sarian (40:56)
I'm like, wow, this was a waste of time. I could have fixed this if I just had a FaceTime with them and maybe talk for 20 minutes. Because personalities are very different on messaging versus not. So either FaceTime with them or WhatsApp video call. I mean, if you don't have an Apple, that's fine too. But the other thing is

Siara (41:08)
Yes.

Caitlin Sarian (41:16)
just even before you even share your phone number, if there's a way that you can give like a Google voice number or not your real number...

Siara (41:23)
Hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (41:23)
It

kind of takes the FaceTime thing out pretty much, but if you're kind of skeptical of this person, you're like, well, let's see how it goes. Because what people don't realize is every time you give your phone number, you give so much more detail about yourself than you realize. And even your last name, right? don't give out your last name either because people can Google you and especially in the US, you can get so much information. And my friend actually met someone on a boat, like we're in Miami, so that everyone's on boats. But like she met someone on a boat. She gave him

Siara (41:35)
Yeah, you do.

Caitlin Sarian (41:51)
her number and he ended up being a complete crazy person like I know where you live like your parents and like would say her parents name would like be so disappointed in you I'm gonna stalk you into like crazy like she literally met him for like 10 minutes and they went like insane

Siara (42:04)
Wow.

Caitlin Sarian (42:06)
Like you give a phone number, basically giving your last name too and when you have a first and last name you can easily look up things and then usually your family's all connected to that and where your home address is so I know it seems like very stupid, you're like it's just my first and last name what are they gonna do? they can get a lot of information on you from just that. So until you really meet someone I would try to you know there's a lot of companies out there too that kind of give you identities as well I can generate as many phone numbers as I want on a certain app.

Siara (42:21)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (42:32)
and I would just try not to give your phone number like keep it on the app I don't know can you like FaceTime on apps now? I feel like you can. Okay.

Siara (42:37)
Love that.

I'm not on apps,

but I feel like you can. yeah. And

Caitlin Sarian (42:47)
I feel like you can now. So just keep everything in the end.

Siara (42:51)
there's

we can say I prefer to communicate through the app for now, and maybe you'll get my number later if someone asks, and if they have a problem with that, I think that that's a red flag in its own. So yeah, just

Caitlin Sarian (43:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

Siara (43:07)
Babysit your information a little bit more. because it's crazy out there. Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (43:11)
Yeah, I'm just crazy cooks. And if anyone's asking you

for money and giving you a sob story after you've talked to them for 30 minutes, I would immediately run for the hills. Also, there's a way to reverse Google Image Search or reverse image search people to see if they are who they say they are. So I know my friend told me that her mom was just back in the dating game and she was talking to this guy for a couple months and the guy randomly asked for money. And she was like, no, no, no, no. And then she sent her mom my video and her mom found out it was

Siara (43:17)
No.

immediately now.

Mmm.

Caitlin Sarian (43:40)
like a fake person, it was a real person, they just stole the picture. Yeah, the catfishing. So there's a lot of catfishing on dating apps too, and there's ways that you can figure that out.

Siara (43:42)
Ugh. the catfishing. Yeah.

What if someone wants to know more about their date before meeting up in real life? know, an appropriate amount. We don't want to go too crazy.

Caitlin Sarian (43:59)
Yeah, so I would definitely just look them up on social media. If you have mutual friends on social media, I would ask them.

Siara (44:04)
Mm.

Caitlin Sarian (44:10)
See, this is where I'm a little bit different. everyone's like, you must stalk your dates before you go on a date with them. And I'm like, I'm actually the opposite. I kind of want I want a normal dating experience, you know? So for me, I would just look at, I would literally look at their Instagram or like Facebook or whatever they have. And honestly, if they didn't have it, like my boyfriend hadn't posted in like four years, I'm like, is this a red flag or is this a green flag?

Siara (44:20)
BlinkSight, right?

Caitlin Sarian (44:36)
I realized it was a great flag. Yeah, it was a great flag for sure. I'm very happy. Yeah. But

Siara (44:36)
I say green flag. I say green. You look happy.

Caitlin Sarian (44:43)
yeah, so like it just depends. I would just do some research. But again, if you're meeting in like a public place, you're not giving them your phone number at the beginning.

You're talking to them obviously, so you should know something, right? Like you should ask hard questions. You shouldn't just be like, let's go on a date like immediately after you match with them. I mean, I don't think I've ever did that, but maybe some people do. I would just get to know them a little bit. there's cute, clever ways of playing fun games on the app. We'll schedule a photo of FaceTime on the app too. I think you can now.

Siara (44:50)
Uh-huh.

Yeah, absolutely. Talk a little bit.

OK, another thing that happens is that revealing photo exchanges happen. Any tips for if someone chooses to do this, that is absolutely their choice. But any tips for how people can do so safely? Because I am concerned. I've always been concerned about that, but now I'm even more concerned with deep fakes and just the general Internet. It's a little bit scary. So what are the risks?

And what tips do you have for people who choose to take that route?

Caitlin Sarian (45:40)
Yeah.

I mean, I would immediately say just don't do it. But it's easier for me to say because I just I'm like paranoid. And also I've had a lot of friends that were dating a guy and then sent photo and then like that guy used it to like exploit them and get money or basically threaten them to do something like do certain things. And if you really don't know someone I feel like if you're like married with someone fine, I don't think they're going to be doing anything with it. Hopefully. I mean, maybe because 50 percent

Siara (45:47)
Paranoid, yeah.

Right.

Caitlin Sarian (46:07)
a marriage, send-in divorce, but hopefully not. But just be careful and if you're sending it through wi-fi, like maybe send it with a VPN, don't like send this on like open wi-fis.

Siara (46:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, don't send it in a Starbucks,

Caitlin Sarian (46:22)
Yeah, don't send it in a Starbucks, please. Or like an airport Wi-Fi, like

Siara (46:22)
folks.

Caitlin Sarian (46:26)
you'd be surprised. first of all, everyone should have enough respect for themselves. And I hope one day that everyone, we live in a world where everyone's so comfortable with themselves and have respect for themselves, but they don't feel like they need to

But I totally know that everyone wants, to feel loved and appreciated and beautiful and whatever. So I know that it happens. And I will say, not that I ever sound like crazy, crazy pictures, but like, you know, I had long distance boyfriends and whatever. I get why people would want to do that. It's just, there's consequences to your actions. And you just don't, you really don't know what's gonna happen. I would just not do it.

Siara (46:57)
Mm-hmm.

is a little bit of a, you know, a darker segue. But according to a 2021 Pew Research Center study, 16 percent of women report being sexually harassed online and about five percent of men. That's only what's reported. I know lots of people have been harassed. I don't know anyone who's personally reported it. So I do kind of feel like that number is a lot higher.

And then within this landscape, image-based abuse is the particularly insidious form affecting 57 % of women and involving everything from manipulative photos to non-consensual image sharing. And so, you know, we have the advice of maybe just don't send the picture at all, but sometimes these pictures aren't risky photos. Sometimes they're just, it could be a normal photo of your face and they then manipulate it to be something else.

Caitlin Sarian (47:31)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Siara (47:51)
And so this has

opened up very big bag of worms in my brain thinking about how to protect, you know, not just women know, but also men and they's and them's and everyone. So I'm thinking about, social media profiles being public. That feels more risky now than ever. dating app matches. Those who are on dating apps, when you have kind of left

a situation ship we'll call it. Do you really need to stay matched with that person? Maybe this is the time to start unmatching people that we're no longer interested in. These are just my thoughts, but I'm curious like what you think and how we can protect ourselves when they're not even necessarily risky photos. It's really just our face that can now be used against us.

Caitlin Sarian (48:35)
Yeah, so regarding like the sexual harassment online, that's like so sad to hear. I actually haven't heard about sexual harassment online. really, I mean I know that it's happened. Obviously I get tons of like, you know, stuff. I hear more about sex-sortion, which is basically like extorting people for sexual...

Siara (48:54)
Mmm.

Caitlin Sarian (48:57)
photos and there's like two ways of doing it right there's ways where the this person like kind of you know talks to you and gets you all excited and like asks like sends you a photo of themselves so you would send a photo yourself type of thing and then once they photo they either continue to say send more photos or we're going to release this or pay us and we won't release this so there's like two types of sex torsions there's like more financial or asking for more pictures and that's super concerning i know that's

Siara (49:10)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (49:23)
happening a lot. I, the issue is again, once you start sending photos, with people that you don't even really know or have not met. it gets to be in a huge issue. And even though they want you to trust them, I would just say, blanket statement, don't trust anyone on the internet. don't be sending photos through apps, don't be sending photos to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, whatever it is,

Siara (49:41)
Ahem.

Caitlin Sarian (49:42)
really meet people and get to know them. Regarding the apps and stuff like when I was on apps like years ago I never actually unfollowed anyone but I mean maybe I would now I don't know I

Siara (49:52)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (49:57)
You're right, I mean it's really easy to generate photos. However, there are certain services now that like you can report AI photos to and they'll try to take it down. I don't know how good they are because I've obviously not ever used it. But also Meta has like a sex-sortion website too that you can report if you're involved in sex-sortion on the app because I guess it's really prominent and actually it's really prominent with young boys.

So boys are getting sextorted, which I would have assumed that would be more women, but it's not because I think.

Yeah, it's a really weird world we're living in. But yeah, it's really sad. just don't trust anyone online, even if they are playing on your hard strings. Wait till you meet someone in person and even then, wait a long time. Really get to know this person because You don't know anyone for at least three or four months, in my personal opinion.

Siara (50:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

And then similarly with those of us who I'm not one but for parents out there who are protecting their family when it comes to family safety online do you have any major do's and don'ts for families and parents who are trying to keep everyone safe.

Caitlin Sarian (51:03)
Yeah, dude,

It's just so hard to have a family in this day and age. I fully recognize that. For me, I obviously don't have a family either, so take these tips with a grain of salt because I've never enforced them. So I understand that they're probably really hard to enforce. For me, if I had kids, They need to do anything online in an open living room area where they're not in their bedroom because they can't really do a lot. You can avoid a lot of stuff.

Siara (51:17)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (51:29)
If they're on the internet in front of you, right? So for me, I'm like, okay, we're to have like an open area where they're going to be able to have their devices. They are not allowed to bring the devices in their room. They don't need the devices in their room, right? Why would they, if you need an alarm, you get an alarm clock. Like what else do you need? It's not good to do before bed. So I would have like an area where they are allowed to like be on their devices and have screen time. And then I'd also make sure that all of them are on like the teen mode or, kid mode, YouTube has kids.

Siara (51:32)
Right.

Caitlin Sarian (51:56)
Instagram has teen mode, TikTok has teen mode, and then I would just I would just make sure that it's open communication, right?

If you are best friends with your kids, not best friends, but like your kids trust you enough, make sure that when you say like, Hey, if something feels weird, just tell me there's like nothing wrong. You're not going to get punished. Like you're not like, we just want to know. We want to protect you. Want to help you. Cause the issue that I found is like kids are embarrassed. They like kind of know what's wrong, but they don't want to tell their parents cause they're scared. They're going to get in trouble. Like the other issue is like a lot of online gaming, like Roblox and stuff is really bad.

Siara (52:31)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (52:32)
for kids that get groomed by adults and the kids think they're talking to another kid like literally groomed by like a 55 year old man and somewhere in Nashville Tennessee I don't know and so it's like online gaming and again that can be pretty much prevented if it's in the living room and you can talk to your kids like hey what'd you do today like did you meet anyone new in the app did you do this but there's also a lot of parental controls that you can put in place for your kids too and I would just monitor

Siara (52:36)
another kid.

Mm.

Caitlin Sarian (52:57)
Not like Big Brother monitor like every second of the day, but you can kind of monitor, you can see, you know, Roblox transactions. There's I think there's like a Roblox for parents that you can see kind of what they're doing and who they're talking to. I'm pretty sure you can. I think it just a open communication policy and stuff needs to be done in the house in an open area.

Siara (53:08)
Okay.

Okay, so I also would love to talk about employee privacy. We talked a little bit about that earlier. But I think you'd be the perfect person to ask this question. As tech advances, so does workplace monitoring, I've noticed. I think sometimes the monitoring is very valid. both you and I know how important it is for companies to know what's happening on their devices from a cybersecurity perspective.

Caitlin Sarian (53:21)
Mm-hmm.

Siara (53:40)
Employees make cybersecurity mistakes. We need to know when that happens, mostly unintentionally, and businesses need to protect themselves. That said, not all of this monitoring is for the employee's well-being. Sometimes it's about productivity. It could even be something more nefarious. And so I'm wondering when you think cybersecurity monitoring then crosses the line and becomes employee surveillance. how can employees basically

kind of protect themselves from nosy companies and what should they do to really keep things separate.

Caitlin Sarian (54:11)
Yeah, so it's really hard to talk about this because there's no right answer. Obviously I'm on the side of like the consumers because I've just been on the side of consumers now forever, but I get it, right? Like it's like, for example, let's say the NBA, right? You're going to constantly see the players work. You're going to see the players work ethic. Like you don't have to do anything. You're seeing it all every day. Now.

Siara (54:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (54:35)
If a player is not doing well or if an employee is not doing well and they're put on a performance improvement plan. And one of the reasons why is you're like, I don't know what they're doing throughout the day. Like they're not getting the work done that should be done in this time. I think it's very valid for a company to be like, what have they been spending hours on? Just like in the NBA, you can kind of see like, okay, what is this person in training? Have they been going to workouts? Have they been watching tapes? Like you're able to see that it's not illegal.

Siara (54:54)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (55:04)
companies, it's very similar to any sports team, right? At the end of the day, you're trying to reach a certain goal, win a game, whatever. But if I think it's valid, if a company has been put on a performance improvement plan, and they've been notified that they're going to have an extra set of eyes on them, I think that's totally fair. if you're not getting your work done, and I also believe that notification part is really important. Now, they don't

don't

need to say we're going to be tracking and monitoring everything you do online. But I do think they can say, hey, you your performance has slipped. we want to help you, you know, get back to the normal self. We want to make sure that we're kind of monitoring, watching and making sure you're doing what you need to do. And if you're spending too much time on certain things, let you know. Like, there's ways of doing it. But I think a lot of companies now have been using it the opposite way, right? They've been spying on employees

Siara (55:54)
Hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (55:56)
to then see what they're doing and then put them on a performance improvement plan. you can't do that. Because if you did that for everyone, I guarantee you most of the people wouldn't hit what you want them to hit.

Siara (56:04)
Right.

Caitlin Sarian (56:05)
So I just, I think it just depends. And then I also think like employees, and I don't know because I've never read terms of service, like I haven't like read through terms of service before I started a company and I'm not there now. So maybe you can look at yours, but I'm not sure if it says it in their terms of service when you start that they're able to monitor. I do think usually it says if you're on a company computer, we can see everything that you do. Yeah, what you should assume.

Siara (56:27)
Yeah, which you should assume. Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (56:31)
But yeah, I think just like know that they're monitoring you. They're allowed to, honestly. Now if you're going on your own personal computer, fine, you're doing your own thing, but they're not gonna be able to see that, but they are gonna be able to see that you're not on yours, right? So it just depends. think there's a better way of doing it. Like again, if you're on a performance issue, then I think they are definitely allowed to check it out and let you know that they're monitoring,

Siara (56:36)
Yeah.

Not on yours, yeah. Right.

Yeah, I think be a responsible employee and keep your personal stuff off of your work computer. But I think also for companies, it feels like the right thing to do would be to tell your employees that, to communicate like, here's everything that we watch. you know, everyone just have their responsibility to be good employees and be good, you know, employers. But that's, you know, my two cents.

Caitlin Sarian (57:23)
Yeah, and I think everything's online now, right? Like that's the other issue is like during COVID, everything moved online. So it's a lot easier to track people because like every single meeting is on Zoom or Microsoft Teams or whatever it is. Whereas before you were at an office, like a lot of times, like when I worked in the office, was on my computer like maybe half the time, but we were in doing in-person meetings. were like, you know, going to all the meetings were in person, lunches were in person. Like you're actually actively interacting with people. So you couldn't really track people at that point.

Siara (57:23)
⁓ Mm-hmm.

Right.

meetings.

Caitlin Sarian (57:51)
Now everything is trackable.

Siara (57:54)
Right. So I would love to talk a little bit about just your lifestyle as cybersecurity girl. You probably have more of a tendency to be a little bit paranoid. I know I'm paranoid, so I can't even imagine what inside your brain looks like. So I'm curious, do you find yourself constantly suspicious or do you feel like because you have this knowledge, you feel super confident about your data and

If so, are there any quirky or unexpected habits that you have that most people wouldn't think of?

Caitlin Sarian (58:23)
Yeah, so I legitimately don't click on any link. Even if it's on LinkedIn from a follower, I'm not clicking on that link. If I do, I usually say I'm not clicking on the link, like what is this? Because a lot of times people hack into other people's accounts and then they message you with weird stuff. immediately I just avoid clicking on links. And I know I was actually talking to the head of US cybersecurity defense agency and she was like, you can't tell people to avoid clicking on links.

Siara (58:27)
Mm.

Mmm.

Caitlin Sarian (58:52)
know, clicking on links is part of work. And I was like, you can kind of like, I really don't click on any links immediately when I get it. I let people know I'm not clicking on it. I just copy and paste a link. I put it in like a URL checker to make sure that it's like a legit link. I I'm really paranoid with like links, because I just feel like I have a big target on my back

People don't realize that hackers hack for many reasons and one of those reasons is for fame and just like, yeah, I hacked into this, you know? I don't want them to be like, yeah, I hacked into Cybersecurity Girl, she's supposed to be the most secure, you know? I just don't want that. It's like the last thing I want. So I'm really paranoid about that. I...

Siara (59:18)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Sarian (59:27)
I turn on multi-factor authentication with every single opportunity I have, because not everything offers that. And I try not to use a text multi-factor authentication. I use the Authenticator apps. And I use three different ones. Because if they get into one app, then they don't get into everything. I don't reuse my passwords. I use a password manager.

Siara (59:42)
Okay.

Mmm.

What's your preferred password manager?

Caitlin Sarian (59:51)
I mean I use one password, I love one password. I also use keeper security or keeper, it used to be keeppass I think, but I think they changed it to keeper security because they offer more than password. I use a few, again I'm very paranoid and I understand that no one's gonna do that. I get it, I totally get it. I also use a YubiKey which is extra encryption on my computer so people can't get in. Obviously I have a password on my computer too but you know, just in case, again really paranoid.

Siara (1:00:10)
Okay.

Caitlin Sarian (1:00:18)
biggest thing for me is like I have really strong passwords, I do multi-factor authentication for everything. I would like to say I use VPN for everything. I will say that VPN makes it very difficult. A lot of times it do like general work. It slows a lot of things down. It just doesn't interact well and so a lot of times I turn it off which I shouldn't but I also not on public Wi-Fi so there's that. I change hotspots only. I change my home router.

Siara (1:00:42)
Mmm hotspots only

Caitlin Sarian (1:00:49)
password immediately like you know when you get the standard your you get your router and it has a standard password and no one ever changes that you should change it so

Siara (1:00:56)
Mmm. Yeah, that

seems obvious. I'm gonna do that right after this.

Caitlin Sarian (1:01:01)
Yeah, it seems,

mean, again, it's, takes a little bit of time. have to like go on admin dot whatever, but.

Siara (1:01:06)
Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (1:01:07)
you rarely get a new home wifi, like rarely. Like unless you're moving all the time. So it takes like 30 minutes to do and then you're protected for the rest of the time and like make sure it's a strong password. You can still keep that sticker on the bottom of the wifi if you really want to. But just like change it from the standard one. And yeah, just don't click on links. try not to click on links and really like be suspicious any time a link comes to you.

Ask if it can be sent another way. If it's a PDF document, just be like, send me the PDF. If it's like a, know what I So.

Siara (1:01:33)
Mm-hmm. And

QR codes too. I don't imagine you're a big QR code scanner.

Caitlin Sarian (1:01:38)
I've never

been a big... It's funny because QR codes, like, I've recently been in the news and actually on my business card I have a QR code on the back and when people scan it, it says, no, you've scanned a potentially malicious QR code and that's been on my business card for over a year and a half because I knew that from the beginning you don't even know where it's taking you, you don't know what URL it's taking you, it could take you to anywhere. And so just, like, never been a fan of QR codes. But yeah, don't scan QR codes. If you can avoid it.

Siara (1:01:51)
Nice.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay,

so I asked this question to all of my guests and it is what are you logging out of this year and what are you logging into? It's totally up to you how you

Caitlin Sarian (1:02:17)
Yeah, I would ideally like to say I'm vlogging out of like imposter syndrome.

Siara (1:02:22)
Mmm.

Caitlin Sarian (1:02:23)
because every day I'm like, how did I get here? And actually I did this thing with ChatGPT, which is funny, you should probably do it. I don't know if you use ChatGPT a lot, but it's like my best friend. There's like a thing where it says, you can ask it like, hey, you know me best. What do you think I'm good at? But like, what do you think is getting in my way of succeeding in my future? And it literally said like, from all of your searches, it seems like you're, you don't have faith in yourself, even though you have so many accomplishments. Like it seems like you have impossi- like it, and this, I said this yesterday,

Siara (1:02:32)
Yeah.

Caitlin Sarian (1:02:51)
It was like crazy. was like, you of knew this, maybe I should listen to John GPT

Siara (1:02:51)
Wow.

Caitlin Sarian (1:02:58)
But yeah, so I think I'm logging out of like imposter syndrome and like knowing that I'm worth being in the room and like I should be in the room and then just logging into my full potential because I truly feel like I can grow this. This is not little thing for me. I want this brand to be like a household name where like, hey, Cybersecurity Girl told me to do this. this is like, she told me to do this, let's go do it.

like it's fun, easy stuff. So I just want to log into like just making my brand a household name that is affiliated with fun understanding and simplicity with when it comes to tech. So.

Siara (1:03:30)
You are already that to me, by the way, just so you know, and to a lot of people, I think.

Caitlin Sarian (1:03:33)
Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thanks.

I mean, that's the goal. But thank you. I appreciate it. There's the imposter syndrome. I don't think it's happening. I'm like, maybe it's on your way.

Siara (1:03:40)
Yeah.

See, yeah.

You are like, you have millions of followers listening, hanging on to your every word talking about cybersecurity. Just saying, just saying. Okay, but how can we learn more about your work? I'm gonna put all of your socials, but are you working on anything new or like what's the update on Cybersecurity Girl?

Caitlin Sarian (1:04:02)
Yeah, so I am.

working on a deletion service for people so they can delete their data online, which is something like all my most viral videos are about that, like helping people just like kind of clear their names. The other thing is I launched a cyber career club, so if anyone's interested in getting into cyber or like wanting to understand where to start, go to the career club. It's basically the price of two hamburgers. It's really cheap. I wanted it to be accessible to everyone and on top of that, it's a place that's inclusive to every type of cybersecurity.

professional. felt like there were so many training programs but they're all geared to technical or coding and I wanted to show people all the different areas and guide them. that is like my baby right now is a cyber career club. So

follow me because that's the best way you're going to be updated. Honestly, I don't even know half the stuff. mean, I'll probably remember a lot of stuff in my head. But right now, my baby is a cyber career club, which is like getting people into cyber as a career. And then also building all these platforms for people to help educate them. Like I work with Nord and, one password and a lot of other companies because I just want to get the word out and I recommend what I use.

Siara (1:04:51)
haha

Well, thank you so much for sharing all of this wonderful wisdom. Thank you for joining us, everyone, today.

Caitlin Sarian (1:05:12)
Thanks everyone.

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