190. More Than Money: Decoding online safety from personal data to shopping with former TikTok cybersecurity lead, Caitlin Sarian aka Cybersecurity Girl

From Adams Morgan to Anacostia park, we all want safer neighborhoods. But what does real safety mean? Real safety means preventing crime before it happens by having police work with communities to disrupt cycles of violence by supporting families with stable housing and providing more mental health and drug treatment. We know that adding more police and locking up more people doesn't make us safer. Real safety means investing in the things that help prevent crime. Learn more at Real Safety DC.

Welcome.

Back to another episode of Trading Secrets, More Than Money Edition. Caitlin Sarian, she is an ex TikTok cyber security lead. So she's a tech influencer and she wants to help you guys protect and secure your data online and break into the tech industry. So anything as it relates to engineering cyber security. She has built an amazing community and she's here to support any of us in any way, help us build our network and help us flourish in tech. So if you have questions on the, I mean, anything, right? I mean, just the inner workings of TikTok and the algorithm of TikTok, and I mean, cyber security now more than ever is so important. If you, this stuff gets hacked, it's at jeopardy. It's like your bank account being hacked. So Caitlyn's going to help us through that as we have questions. If you have questions and you want to come on and ask Caitlyn a question, put it in the chat or I will unmute guys and make sure you can come on. But with that being said, Caitlyn, thank you so much for joining us. Caitlyn, first question I got for you. I mean, TikTok, the growth has been absolutely insanity. You have left TikTok, but you started with them. When did you start with them? And how did just the inner workings of that company change over just this crazy material growth we've seen in the last three years?

Yeah, so I, I always wanted to. I'll give you a little bit of background. I always wanted to start my TikTok right after they moved from their China to the US so I actually specifically specialize in data privacy and data protection. So I was living in the UK for a few years. I'm helping with gdpr, but I was recommending to my clients to not use TikTok until they moved over to the US and obviously their massive growth allowed them to partner with Oracle and move their servers over to the U.S. so they all sit in the U.S. and once they started doing that, I was like, you know, TikTok is the most incredible platform. You can reach so many people with it. And I started my my journey with TikTok and my cybersecurity channel. And ironically, TikTok reached out to me to. To actually speak for them at a conference, and it was crazy. I was like, I actually couldn't. I ended up not being able to do it. I had some conflicts with work, but we stayed connected and this amazing opportunity to work for them came up. And I'm going to be completely honest, I was expecting it to be kind of a cluster when I got in, just because of the news, I was like, I have my work cut out for me. And I got into the company and I was so pleasantly surprised with, at least with their cybersecurity practices and the employees that work there, like ex FBI agents, CIA agents. They are extremely organized. And there's a. There's a lot of conspiracy theories as to why I think they continue to hit the news. But I. I used to be a consultant for eight years before I started TikTok, and I did consulting for many of the other competitors, and it was. It was crazy what I saw happening. So I was expecting that when I got to TikTok, and I was so pleasantly surprised that it wasn't actually like that. So.

All right, so I am. I'm not a huge believer in conspiracy theories, but I am one that's very entertained by conspiracy theories. Like, I love to just hear them all because they're entertaining. What are some of the. You mentioned conspiracy theories? Like, what are some of those that are out there for us that don't know just about, like, what could be happening in TikTok or what's like, your favorite one or one that, like, always caught your eye that people would say.

I guess it's not what can be happening in TikTok, but the reasons why everyone's so out against them is probably because they're the one platform that the US doesn't have full control over. They. Their algorithm is like, top secret. And I mean, I think the other competitors are very much controlled by us and, and big companies within the US and so they can. They can, you know, use them how they will, but they can't do that with TikTok. And I think that's why it's a big, scary thing for most politicians here. And it's not actually. I mean, it might be because of the China thing, but I can tell you that I feel extremely. I've seen the inner workings and everything that is said is just. It's completely blown out of proportion. So I. I honestly think it's because the US can control it and not in, like, a bad way of controlling, but they just have no way of, like, force feeding us specific information. And yeah, the news usually force feeds us some. Some information that. Yeah, it's all totally. That's my conspiracy theory.

No, I think. I think that's, like, so fascinating, and I actually agree with really everything you're saying here. I'll just. One more reminder to everyone, you have questions, throw them in the chat. You want to come on and ask a question, please come on in. Caitlin was an TikTok cyber security lead. So that is out there. All right, so, Caitlin, we talked a little bit about the conspiracy theories. Let's talk about the fact you got hired by them. That is a. That is a very unconventional way to get hired by an employer. And what I find intriguing and hopefully some of our All Access members do. You said TikTok hired you for speaking. So first and foremost, how did that come about? Did they reach out to you? What was that process? Like? Just tell us a little bit how they even found you. And if someone wanted to, like, get a hold of the TikTok world guy, it's like, where do you even start?

Yeah, so their head of all of global cyber security reached out to me to. To come to a conference and like, you know, talk to their employees just about cybersecurity best practices. So what we. What people don't realize is there's really two forms of cybersecurity, right? There's like, training your employees because, honestly, your employees are your biggest, Your weakest link, and you're only as strong as your weakest link. So it was more to just make cybersecurity more available and educational to their employees, just to make sure. Because, just because we work at TikTok, not everyone, you know, there's marketing, there's sales, just like every other business. And so not everyone is really focused on cybersecurity. So it was. It was really asking me to speak about and. And bring cybersecurity into a more positive light and more fun and educational view, rather than it just being like. We all know those. Those typical trainings that incorporate where you kind of just check the box and it's not really helpful. But, yeah, that's kind of how it was. It started. And then we continued just to talk. I love their. Their leadership team. It's amazing. And, yeah, I was very intrigued and this role came up and I was like, yeah, I would love. I would love to be part of the team. And I. I'm a huge advocate of the platform. I mean, obviously Every social media platform, there's, you know, blessings and curses, I guess, but I think there's so much good that can be had with social media that outweigh the bad. So I'm, I'm very passionate about all social media platforms, not just TikTok. But yeah, that's kind of how it came about, of how I got asked, and it was, it was pretty cool.

Cool. I'm gonna let you think about it because I'm asking you the golden question. If, you know, if I gave you a hundred thousand dollars right now and you had to bet, will Tick Tock be banned in five years from now in the United States, will it be? Don't answer yet. Think about it. Before we get to that, let me ask you this. The biggest cyber security threat, all of us here on this all access group and anybody that sees trading secrets on our Instagram page or as a listener, what is the biggest cybersecurity threat we are facing right now with our social media? And what can we do about it immediately?

It's like human risk. It's. I think we're our own worst enemy when it comes to this. And it's because we've never been educated. We've been given technology literally since we're children, and no one actually knows how to use it. No one knows really how it works, and we're not told how to keep it safe. And so I think just human risk. And it's not because we're like maliciously trying to do it, but it's because we just don't know any better, which is why I really started this, this journey and education. Obviously there's going to be bad actors everywhere, all over the world, but if you, if us as humans know how to protect ourselves, it won't be that bad.

Okay, what is one thing that, like, the basic, most 101 thing I'm big on takeaways that all of us here can walk away doing today to put our social medias, our online presence in a better, more secure manner. What is one thing we could all do?

Oh, man, there's so many things and they're, they're like three.

Give us your top three.

I'll give you three. So the first one is passwords. And I hate saying this because it sounds so annoying, and I understand that it sounds annoying, but passwords are a big thing. Make them secure, make them long, make them complex. There's a lot of different theories around, like, okay, should you have different passwords for everyone? There's also companies like that have their password managers that you can use that store the like secure passwords. And then yeah, there's just. Passwords are really, really important, so I would really focus on that. The next one is multifactor authentication, which really is like a. Authenticating yourself in two ways. Right. Just today I got an email saying someone tried to reset my Instagram password. And I'm like, wasn't me. But because I have multi factor authentication and they texted me, these people aren't getting in. So like, and it's not that hard to turn on. It's a very simple step. So at least those two for sure are like basic standard things that you guys should do. Yeah, that's probably the easiest takeaway, those two.

What, what's interesting is there's someone actually that's going to be on the finale of the Bachelor tonight that I manage. And ironically, right before this, he had someone try and go into his Instagram account and hack it. He got, he sent me the screenshot of it and the first thing I said to him is like, double authentication. Double authentication. Double authentication. So that's, that's a big one. When you say password, like I. My passwords are the most basic in the world.

Your dog name.

So like, but like, who is actually. Explain to me from a tech standpoint, who's actually going in there and trying to guess your password? Or is it actually like AI and computers that are just running thousands of passwords at a time, like, how does it actually work?

So there's a standard set of like most common passwords that are run against most of these most users accounts. Then whenever your name is involved in a data breach, those passwords are leaked. And so then those passwords are now affiliated with that. So specific email or login or username. And so it's really easy for people to find and run those passwords. And then there's a really easy algorithm what you can do like changes. Let's say like your password was, you know, your dog's name. So then they, they obviously knew that it used to be your dog's name. But then there's a script that allows them to generate 10,000 different variations of like your dog's name. One, your dog's name, exclamation point, your dog's name. One, two, three. So like even changing it by like one letter, it like doesn't do anything. And it's because it's out there. So. And data breaches happen all the time. Like not purposely. A lot of times it's ransomware or other threat actors. But once there's a data breach and there's actually a website that you can go on to see which accounts that you have that have been breached and have I been pwned.com but I can give it to your followers in a second or I can write it in the chat.

But it literally lists the chat.

Yeah, it literally lists every single account when it was breached and the credentials and everything that they got. And if any of those credentials are still being used on any of your other accounts, it's very easy for someone to just go in and. Or if you haven't changed those passwords or like updated it by like one, it's not that hard to get for people to get it if they want to get in. Obviously there's not like crazy malicious people that want to try everyone's. But everyone can be a target. And I mean, my mom get was targeted and I'm like, I don't know why she's targeted, but maybe because they were trying to get to me. I don't know. But like, you just never know. So it's just better to be safe than sorry.

Okay, the questions are starting to pile in. I think that's a great piece of advice. If you could. We're going to have one person come on and ask a question. If you could just take a minute and put it in the chat, that website, that would be really, really good for us all to walk away with. While you're doing that, Caitlin, let's get a question from the chat and let's start with Hillary. Caitlin, put it in there. Have I been password? Pond. Okay, they're missing the A.

It's actually poned, but I say pond. And actually my first viral video, I said pond. And people like exploded on me. They're like, you can't be in cyber security if you don't know how to stay pwned. And I'm like, it's the weirdest phrase. Just leave it alone. Anyway.

All right, Hillary, come on. What do you got?

Yeah, so I. I put this in the chat, but I use a password manager. I know there's a couple out there and I use one password and I feel like it took me a while to set it up, but now when I set up new accounts or need to change my password, it just uses like the auto generated. But I also know that those kinds of companies have also been hacked. So I was curious about your thoughts. Yeah, no, that's a great question. I actually use one password too, so. Amazing. There are some that get hacked and it's the way that they're storing credentials. And so last password is an example of a password manager that you don't want to use because they store credentials in an old school way. It's kind of complicated on how everything's stored. But I, I trust one password. Lastpasses. I would, I would definitely not do. I think they've had like six breaches in the last like 10 years or something? Ridiculous. But yeah, that's a great question. It just depends on how that company. Another really good one is Keeper security. It's about how that company is storing passwords and like if they're storing it locally on, on you know, servers and then it's easy for people to get in or if it's just communicating between two, two of their servers. And it's harder because it's not actually being stored, it's being stored somewhere in between your device and their servers.

Cool. Thank you.

That's a great question, Hilary.

Awesome. Kayleigh, I saw you had a question. Just he says there a program that you would recommend that checks for any breaches your accounts could have. I think you said that though before haveiben pawn.com. so that would answer that question, right? Just using have I been dot com. Caitlin.

Yeah, I would definitely use that because that shows all, literally all the breaches and it was made by like an, I think it's the ex FBI or CIA agent. So it's, it's a very, it's been around for a while too. The other thing is a lot of people ask me how can they tell if someone's like in their account or like if they've been hacked? And there's, I mean obviously my social media has a lot of tips on how to look and check, but there's a lot of ways to tell who's been logged into accounts at this point. So like Google, you can tell who's like what devices are logged in and where they're logged in from. WhatsApp, your Apple account. Like there's a lot of accounts that you can kind of just double check to make sure that people aren't like logged in and like looking through your stuff.

Perfect. Okay, that's, that's great and great question, Kaylee. All right, Julie has a few questions. So Julie, I'm going to let you come on and fire away.

All right. Hey Caitlin, I have a question for you. How do you stay safe and private when you're growing your company as a personal brand? Yeah, that's a really good question. I guess my question back to you is what's your definition of safe and private? I'm very paranoid, so I don't want anyone to know where I live or come after me for money because I'm in the make money online space. So the more you advertise how much you make online, you get more customers, but then you're putting a target on your back.

So you don't want to come on Trading Secrets and talk about how much you made this past year.

I might have already done that actually. I was a listener call in, remember that? True, but I've been thinking more about that and it's one of the reasons it kind of stops me from wanting to put myself out there.

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Yeah, no, I feel you. I mean as a cyber security person on TikTok, I'm like, I have her biggest target on my back because people just want to try to hack the cyber security girl. I use a lot of different platforms. One of them is Delete Me. It helps. Literally it scans and deletes your information off of the, yeah, the main data servers. So I, I would definitely start with that. I, I started doing it manually a long time ago and actually some of my viral videos are like how you can go about doing it manually but honestly I don't know how, I don't know how much it is. Maybe like a hundred dollars a year or something. It's worth it because they, they find it all. I think they scan like 1200 websites and most of them are like the main data broker websites and they remove your information and you give them like all, all sorts of like combinations of like where you've previously Lived and all that stuff. And then they scan every single website. So I've lived in like 12 different states, honestly, in the last like six years. And so even different states have records of you different ways. So I honestly kind of swear by delete me because I don't have the time to go about finding my first and last name in every state that I've ever lived in or done anything in. And they go every couple months and re recheck to make sure that your. Your stuff's not there. The other thing is, don't give out your real information. Like if you have a Google Voice number, start using that. There's also a new, a new company called Cloaked, which I think is still on beta. It's probably, I think it's launching in September. But they allow you to generate real working phone numbers, emails and passwords and like assign it to like if you want to do a rewards program at Starbucks. Like you can do it on your app. And it's similar to Google Voice where everything will go through your app, emails will go through your app, text messages will go through your app, and you can have it forwarded to your real phone, but at least it's not your real stuff. So I've just started giving out like, not like fake numbers, but like not my real stuff. And I would just try to avoid like whenever they ask to track cookies, I like make sure I usually set that. Do not track cookies. Anytime you try to like buy something new on a website. I just, I just try to avoid my digital footprint and if I have to do it, I kind of like span it out to like random ones that I generate from this app. So I'm trying to avoid. I mean, obviously I'm kind of all the all out there, but with my personal information, it's. There's a lot of ways that now that you can like kind of manage who you're sharing that with. Like even people I meet at like bars or I don't even know, like conferences. Like, I don't give out my real information to anyone anymore because you can get so much information even off of a phone number. Like I can look up reverse phone number, search you and probably find your first and last name, like your home address, your parents home address. Like so many things.

How do you do that? A lot of calls these days.

Yeah, I think it's called like reversed phone search or reverse phone lookup. There's a lot of things that you can do because your phone, like for every single data broker website, a phone number's attached to it. So this software really allows them to just like re engineer that and pull the information from that. Usually you have to pay. But even with like pictures of people, like you can literally there's, there's softwares that you can input a picture and it will show all the similar pictures like Google Image search and like some people like find me on like LinkedIn. So that was like an issue. When I started working at TikTok they were like, okay, well they can reverse Google Image search you and realize that you work at TikTok. And I'm like okay, cool. But yeah, so it's just, it's just making sure that you kind of reduce your digital footprint and then make sure when you are giving information it's try to not give your real one or give a like Google Voice or something else. If you had multiple people sharing one social account for a company, would you use the Google Voice for the company like email address or would you do something else? Because we lock each other out if it's someone's personal cell phone. Yeah. So when, so I'm trying to understand the question. You're saying that there's like three of you that are all on the same Instagram like business account and then every time, every time you kind of kick each other out. Do you do it on purpose? Are you asking if it's like on purpose or. I mean anytime we try to set up two factor auth, I mean it could be for anything like bank account, whatever. If it's to one of our email or phones, then we're kind of like locking the group out. So we thought oh, let's use Google Voice. But now I'm like, is that a bad idea? It sounds like it's not. But is it bad if it's like the company Google Voice? If it's like the same thing? Because it could go to the email and someone could get in that way. Yeah, if it's a company Google Voice that goes to the same email authentication, I wouldn't do it. But if the Google Voice is attached to like a different company email, like just, I would just generate like a different company email like one off and have it go to that Google Voice. Because every Google Email you can generate a Google Voice number. Also I, I just found out a couple months ago Google's been cracking down on Google Voice. So if you're not using it frequently, they are kicking people off the platform because there's just so many Google like people using Google and they don't have the space. So just Be very. If you're using Google Voice and you only use it like once every like six months and it's like your password for something, try to use it more, a little bit more often because I don't want you guys to get kicked out and then the number reassigned and then you're going to not be able to log in. So. Thank you. Yeah, of course.

Okay. Can you post the link to Delete Me? Worried fake ones would show Hillary show up in a Google search? Tell me more about that.

I didn't get talking about what the program was called. It was an app called Delete Me or is it a website? It's kind of both. It's a. I, I go through the website because at the beginning you do have to give a. I had to give a lot of information just because I want them to delete like everything. I even gave like my brother's name, my sister's name because I'm like, if I'm attached to them on theirs, then I need theirs to be deleted too because I don't want any tie. I don't want them to get hacked either. But yeah, it's an, it's a website and an app. I think it's an app. I just do the website. Cool thing. Yeah, of course.

Okay. Question about just the industry, you know, training secrets. It sounds very technical. It sounds like this is like extremely forward thinking and well ahead of the curve. I mean, you're trying to outthink and outperform and create solutions against some of the smartest hackers in the world from like a salary range perspective, entry level to like high level. Just give us a high understanding of cybersecurity. What does it look like?

Yeah, so it's funny that you say technical because I truly believe that technical is more of like the coding hacking side, but there's so many other sides. So in my head, cybersecurity is like a science, right? There's so many types of sciences, chemistry, there's biology, but there's. And because of that there's so many areas where like yes, there are areas that are technical that you're going to have to like, you know, outthink the hacker and like try to code them and whatever. But there's also so many areas that aren't which is like training and awareness, governance, risk and compliance, data privacy, data protection. And honestly, like you said, you have to outthink the hacker or so there's a lot of people that have like psychology degrees and stuff like that because we need literally every type of person in cybersecurity, it's so broad. So I like to think there's like non technical buckets of cyber and technical buckets of cyber. I don't think I'm technical at all. I do not know how to code anymore. I did mechanical engineering in college, so I did two classes of coding and they were my worst. I think I barely passed. I think I got C minuses in both. So I'm not good at coding, but I am good at understanding how things work. I'm good at communicating and like data protection, privacy that there's lawyers involved in that. So from a salary range, it really depends on like what area you want to get into too. But I would say in General in the US probably starting 70, 80k, 60, 80k maybe if you're doing remote and then it goes honestly a little nut. So like it's kind of low at the first three years, but after three or four years of being in cyber, you're in the, the 150 to 250 range as a base.

Okay, amazing. Very, very interesting. All right, I'm going to come back, we're going to go to Alyssa's question a second. Before we do, I'm going to go back to that, that $100,000 question. $100,000, you double your money if you're right. Is Tik tok banned in the United States in five years from now? What do you think?

I'm going to say I hope not. But also given the state of the U.S. i don't have a lot of faith, so I don't know. I'm gonna say I hope not, but.

Okay, I hope not. So we're going to say no. We'll see what we're going to put that follow back up in five years and see what happens. We walked over some things you could do to protect yourself. We went over the salary range, talked a little bit about the inner workings of TikTok. The last thing I got to end with is just oh, shopping questionnaire. Okay, I'll get to that in a second. I got to get to like anything you're in influencing space and then also you work for TikTok. Are there any things behind the scenes as it relates to like the algorithm or social media or just, just anything that you've had in like the think tank of TikTok, conversations that just us typical average consumers would never be able to understand, know or hear. Could you give us like a trading secret?

Yeah, so I actually, I can give you a trading secret from my Personal experience, but not. I, I couldn't even get verified when I worked at TikTok. Like I like reached out to people and they were like, no. And I'm like, this is actually an issue because if someone says they're me and I work for you guys, like you need to verify me. I actually didn't get verified until after I left. So people always ask me, can you like set me up with verification? I'm like, I can't help you with that. But I can say it's in my opinion it's a numbers game. I, I think hooks are really, really important for, for and like the way that it's set up. But I honestly think it's the consistency of it and I think that's how every platform is now because they want as much content as possible. Yeah, that's pretty. I, there's not, there's really no trading secrets. The algorithm is based on user preference. So I like, like that's the easiest and simplest way to say it. And people are like, oh, what about. I'm like, no, I mean it's literally based, it's SEO now. So I will say like TikTok is trying to complete compete with Google and so you want to make long caption. You want to make it SEO friendly because if, if you think about it, TikTok is what you know, the gen zers are using as Google. Everyone's searching for response like you know, searching questions and it's easier honestly to follow like I broke a light and I couldn't get, figure out how to get the light bulb out and I literally searched on TikTok more than Google because I actually have a one minute video that will teach me immediately rather than reading a blog. So to me it's like you make it SEO friendly because TikTok is trying to be, I think it's time trying to be the next Google and, and be like the best search engine for it and educational platform as well and then just post as often as possible. I think that's the, the best thing to, to do.

Oh, I do. Yeah. I use TikTok all the time. Like if I'm traveling somewhere, best restaurants in the area and then you get to actually see the food, see the restaurants way better than YouTube or Google. So that's a really, really good piece of advice. Okay, we have a shopping question here. So is there a lot of issues with just online shopping? As far as security goes, when you're inputting all this information, your credit card information, sometimes in Google you just click the button. It fills it all in. And is there any takeaway we should be aware of when online shopping and putting in all this information?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think one is verify that the online shopping platform is like legit, obviously like Amazon. That makes sense. But there's so many random websites that pop up from like Instagram or whatever that are not based in the US which is totally fine if it's not based in the U.S. but they, they might be in, based in a little bit sketchier countries and they're, you know, ripping off photos from other, other places. And it just, I would just one make sure that the website is legit and I. There is actually a few websites that you can check where it scans and it will tell you like how long the website's been up and running, where it's based and if there's like any red flags. Also the easiest way to tell is if it's an HTTPs but S is secure. If it's an HTTP, I probably wouldn't buy anything off of it and I probably, I would never buy anything off of an HTTP WWW site. So the S means secure. You're good usually. But there's a few things that you can check to make sure that those websites are secure before you buy. And then the next thing again, like I said is, is try not to give all of your information out. Like all of your personal details. Like if, if it's not required, don't do it and if it, if they force you to do it. Like I don't even half the time I like say Cat Sarah or like Kate, something else. Like even when you, even when you're like making a reservation online, I don't even give my real name. Not that I could go like that far off, but I just don't want continuing records of like where I've been. So I would just be weary of like again, what, what data that you're giving to these random websites. Because surprisingly these smaller websites are, are worse because the bigger websites are very much governed and sanctioned by laws and regulations and they're constantly getting checked and sued, et cetera. But it's a smaller websites that really don't have the bandwidth or the capacity or the knowledge to realize that they have to abide by certain laws. And so I actually think the smaller websites are the ones that you should be more weary about. Like this sounds bad, but like the mom and pop websites that like really just have no idea storing your data probably on their local computer. And like if they get breached and all this data is gone. So I would just, one, be wary of the website. There's a few websites that you can use to check if a website's legit and then don't give out your information if you don't need to.

Okay. I think that's brilliant, brilliant advice, actually, tying that to the talent agency we run when we're working with other public figures and we're doing deals with them. Obviously there's just so much PR risk when someone is putting their stamp of approval. And a lot of people have fallen victim to approving and endorsing companies and deals that are just garbage or like complete fraud. So we actually have to go through a vetting system similar to the things you're referring to, make sure that all companies are 100% safe, secure, and just everything is completely cleaned up just because the risk is so high out there. So it's interesting, some of those tips you gave us are tips that we have when we go through the process of vetting. And like you said, the small mom pop shops are usually the ones we have to turn away from just because of potential liability risks. That's interesting. All right, we actually have someone in here. Tanya said that she is just starting her cybersecurity degree. So this info is timely and very helpful to her. If you have one piece of advice for Tanya, she started it. What would you say, Caitlin?

I. I say there's two. One is continue your passion. You're never going to know everything and you have to keep learning. And two is to network like, network like crazy. I think everyone's like, oh, I need to focus on certifications. And I always say, obviously you need to learn if, if you go into coding, you need to learn how to code, but for non technical roles, it's really your network is your net worth. And, and I strongly believe that if you're spending 10 hours a day studying for a certification versus if you spend 10 hours a day networking with people on LinkedIn, I think you'd have a way better chance of getting a job right now in this, in this job environment. So I think just continue to have a passion for learning and exploring and never stop that. But if you're going a non technical route in cyber, I would definitely say try to network as much as possible on LinkedIn and other platforms.

One built relationship, one message on LinkedIn, one handshake, one cup of coffee, one drink and shortcut. Literally 10 years of work. So I couldn't agree more with that. Okay, we had a. This is a great question from Lizzie, what about personal information? As far as job applications go, many of them ask for everything. Phone number, addresses. Are there security laws, regulations protecting against these types of platforms? Any thoughts, advice on that?

There are laws. I think legally they're allowed to keep it for at least five years if you didn't get the job. And I think it's like 10 years if you did get the job, you can always go back and ask them to remove their data. But I guarantee you the legal team will probably say no. That is one you're probably going to have to bite the bullet and give your your real information. I don't give my phone number out, my real phone number. Like I said, I do the Google voice or a cloaked number. But yeah, I think that unfortunately you have to give your real name because if you do get hired, they're going to do background checks and then they're.

Going to wonder 10 years. So I applied for a job, they could have my information for 10 years.

I think legally. It also depends on the country. If I remember correctly when I was looking at the law firm a couple of years ago, I think if they, if you didn't get the job they have it for, they have to keep it for five years just for them. They say they need it just to make sure that you're not going to continue to reapply and then get turned down and then finally get accepted. But I think 10 years if you actually worked for a company. Because I think that, I think that's like this kind of a statute of limitation type of thing for Sue. I, I'm not a lawyer, so don't take my advice. But that's what I remember, like explaining to people it lasted pretty long time.

So I've gotten, just in this conversation, I've gotten several texts that have come through from people that are here on Trade Secrets Team or just even the chat. And I just got one from someone that works at String Secrets. I just got a notification from macfeed that my Twitter was breached on the dark web this weekend. So the timing is great. Then between the bachelor guy getting hacked out, I feel like every person in some level or degree is feeling this, at least in the last 12 months. It's just so prevalent, so extremely, extremely timely. And I think the work you're doing in education you're putting is just so helpful for all of us out there. I want to. We'll do one more here. If you have any questions, guys, get them in tomorrow. I'm a little confused on your question. Can you come on and ask you asked about the difference between Canada and US social media influencing. Can you just tell us a little bit more about that? If Blake, you can unmute. Tamara, Tamara, Tamara. Tamara.

Hopefully you can hear me.

Yes, we can.

My question is, is there a difference with social media influence between Canada and U.S. because most social influences basically the U.S. u.S. Marketing, U.S. influence and in Canada it's not as widely thought as. Because even with doing Amazon and doing anything with TikTok, we don't have to give any compensation for influencer. So that's what my question.

Yeah, so I could, what I could speak to from that is we work with some Canadian influencers and they actually, like you said, they have some type of limitations as to websites they can access, content they can see. As a result of that, there are two things. There are restrictions on the total impressions they can make that are different than the United States. So their total impressions are limited based on certain restrictions. As a result of that, usually their rates will be lower if they're in in Canada, but that varies. It's not always the true in every case. The second one is there are a lot of Canadian companies that we work with and the first thing they say they have money to spend, it has to be a Canadian based influencer because that's where they're specifically trying to target the individuals they're marketing to and or their laws and regulations. So in that case when they tell us that we know we can get a premium because they have to fit within that confines. So it goes both ways as far as reach, but also selectability based on where the company's headquartered. Does that answer the question a little bit?

Yes, it does. Thanks.

Thank you for the question. Well, those are all the questions that came in. You know Caitlin, this is absolutely amazing to just hear more about this. It's also kind of terrifying. So I know I tighten my stuff up, take Ramen and Pinot right off all my passwords. So hopefully no one here gives that a shot. But Caitlin, where people find everything that you have going on, where can we learn more from you? And you know this code that you have coming out in a month that your manager just put on the chat.

Where can we go find that my manager's referencing? I'm doing a free like cybersecurity online security guide that's coming out in the next month and it's what literally all the companies that I use and I was like I should just recommend these because I get asked these questions all the time. So that can all be found on cybersecuritygirl.net it's still a little buggy. I'm working there. I mean it's there but I'm working through finishing that up. And then the other thing is just on my platforms like all this information can be found on my platforms. I have so many short form videos and I've, I've kind of grouped them all so it's pretty easy to find like what you need. And my social media handles are Cybersecurity girl for, for TikTok and then cybersecurity underscore girl for Instagram. Same with YouTube, et cetera. If you want to find me on LinkedIn too. I, I, I forgot was it Tanya that she is going into cyber security? So we have like a LinkedIn group and a Discord group for people that want to go and get into cybersecurity as well. There's a lot, a lot coming in the space book deal hopefully to help people to stay and set, set up everything that they need to be secure not just online but in their home for Internet connected devices, et cetera. So all that's coming. But if you probably just watch and follow either my social media or cybersecuritygall.net you should be up to date.

Amazing. We really, really appreciate all this information. Hopefully you save at least one of us some trouble as the hackers are on the rise. So thank you, thank you for being here. We appreciate it.

Yeah, I just want to try to help everyone get stay protected and get protected as much as possible. So thank you so much.

Amazing. Yeah, I love the consumer protection angle like the trading secrets you have behind this space. Huge. So thank you for coming on. We appreciate it and we will see you soon. Thank you again.

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