Protecting Your Privacy with Caitlin Sarian

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You're listening to the Secure Dad Podcast. Discover ways to protect yourself and your family at home, in public, and online. Welcome, friend. I'm Andy Murphy, the creator of the Secure Dad. This podcast serves to help people become proactive in their safety. The information I share on this podcast is for general information purposes only. My goal is to empower you to make safer decisions for yourself and your family because our safety is our own responsibility. Today I have the pleasure of talking with Caitlin Sarian, a cybersecurity expert on how we can protect ourselves online and.

Keep our data private.

All of that and more ahead on the Secured ad podcast. In 2023, there were more than 1 million reports of identity theft in America.

New findings from the FTC say that.

Identity thieves were using real information with either an existing credit card or applying for a new one. How do they get this information?

Well, there's a lot of ways, but.

One way is to buy it. Yes, scammers can buy your personal information from data brokers and use it to impersonate you. And buying private data from these sites is completely legal. DeleteMe searches the Internet for your private data that's being sold. Then they delete it. Not just once, they keep looking for it. Go to joindeleteme.com dad there you can get 20% off a privacy plan when using the Code dad at checkout. Keep your data out of the hands of scammers and thieves with help from DeleteMe. See why I find Deleteme essential to my privacy@joindeleteme.com dad and use promo code dad to get 20% off today. Delete Me is a sponsor of the SecureDad podcast. I wrote home the Secure Dad's Guide to help busy people like you protect their homes and their families. The methods in this book I use myself. I wanted to create a concise guide that delivered solid, proven techniques so you can be confident in securing your home. You can't search the Internet forever looking for home security tips. You need a strategy. The core of my book is the Layered Home Defense Strategy. This consists of discipline, discovery, deter, fortify and defend. This comprehensive strategy will make your home safer today and for years to come. Get your copy of my Amazon best selling book today when you search for the secure dad@Amazon.com My guest on the show today is Kaitlyn Sarian. Kaitlin is the top cyber influencer with more than 850,000 followers and sans cyber community of the Year winner. She empowers cybersecurity for all by helping them protect their online world. And inspire tomorrow's leaders. Caitlin previously led TikTok's global cyber advocacy team, leading their cyber awareness both internally and externally. Kaitlyn has spent a decade in cyber consulting and she continues to be a top cyber educator. You may also know her as cybersecurity girl on Instagram. Here's my conversation with Kaitlyn. Welcome to the show, Caitlin. Introduce yourself to everybody.

Thanks, Andy. Happy to be here. Yes, I am Caitlin. I am otherwise known as cybersecurity girl on social media, which is crazy to me. But yeah, I'm the. I think I'm the largest social cybersecurity social media influencer in the world at this point, which I don't know if it's a feat or is embarrassing. I think it's both. But really happy to be here.

Very good.

Yeah, you have. You're trying to get to 400,000 followers today. Like, that's your big thing on Instagram. So best of luck with that.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm at 399. So at this point it just like get me over the finish line.

It's.

But yeah, I mean, it's, it's crazy. I just, I didn't realize how needed cyber security tips are in the world today. And clearly as like, I mean, my social media has grown in two years to that. You can tell how important it is to have this conversation with, with everyday people.

Yeah, absolutely. Everybody, Everybody needs to be aware of what, what's going on online with them, their data, all the scams that are out there and that sort of stuff.

So what was it that piqued your.

Curiosity about cybersecurity that led you to this career?

Yeah, it's actually a funny story because I, I never was peaked in cyber in, in my opinion, this was like 11 years ago. I thought cybersecurity was like a hacker in a hoodie, like behind a computer. And I did engineering. And ironically, before I did engineering, I also thought the same thing. I was like a mechanical aerospace, mechanical engineer. And I honestly thought it just like guys in like coveralls and, you know, grease everywhere. Like, I didn't. I had no idea. But the beauty about we is I'm intrigued and I love learning. So I was like, you know what? I'm good at math and science. I'm going to do engineering. And then when it came to cybersecurity, I was like, I'm a good problem solver, I'm good in tech. Like, I can figure this out. So I kind of like haphazardly, like fell into cybersecurity when I was going into consulting after my master's degree and I learned everything on the job. But I was intrigued by cyber at that time because I was like, I know this is a big deal now. I had no idea what cybersecurity was, but I just knew that it was, like, going to be a thing. I mean, I think if you talk to anyone back then, like, 11 years ago, they probably would have said the same thing, but no one had the ability or. Yeah, no one had the ability or understanding of how to even get into that career field. It wasn't ever mentioned. I just was really, really lucky with the people I ended up meeting during my job interviews. And they. They asked me to do it. So I was intrigued by cyber security more from, like, a learning perspective. I just. I'm a constant learner and constant student, so I. Yeah, I loved it and I haven't looked back since.

Very cool. There are so many people that I have on my show who say humbly, just like you, I'm learning. Don't call me an expert, because I'm always learning and I have a passion for learning. So I think that's fantastic.

Yeah. So there's a lot of people out.

There that think, like, cyber security is only for, like, corporate offices and for banks and things like that.

Why do we as individuals need to.

Practice cyber security in our everyday lives?

Well, cybersecurity in general is. Is protecting yourself online. So technically, the basics of cyber security is they call it the CIA triad. That's how it first started. I think it was in, like, 1987. It's confidentiality, integrity and availability. So making sure that the data that you have is confidential. So only the bright people, like, you know, if people don't need to see it, they don't need to see it. It's protected. So you want that as a person. Right. You don't want your data just thrown out about. For everyone to see. Integrity, making sure that your data is correct. Like, you don't want false, fake news. Like Trump says, we don't want fake news about ourselves online either. And same with companies, but it's really personal as well. And availability, making sure that you have the data when you need to have the data. So, like, for example, if I'm booking, like a appointment, a health appointment, and they're not able to access my records, and I have to go back through a bunch of millions of emails to try to give them, like, making sure that the data is available for the right people at the right time. And that CIA triad is not Just for corporate. If anything, it's more for people. But it's been driven by corporate for so long because corporations want to keep, I mean, I think at the foundation, it's, it's data protection and privacy. They want to keep their data secure from everyone else. They want to keep their intellectual property secure from competitors. So it really started with corporate. But I think what I'm trying to have shift is, you know, I, I also work in training and awareness and a lot of the training professionals that work in corporate are trying to teach people cybersecurity from a corporate perspective. Which means like, how can we teach these people to protect corporate data when really that's not the, the way to go about it. You have to teach the people how to keep their, their personal information safe before they're even, they even care about protecting corporate data. And the way to do that. Yeah, the way to do that is like teaching them why it's important to, to keep their data safe and how to do that. Because if they don't feel empowered to do it for themselves and their family and their loved ones, why would they feel empowered to, to protect corporations that they work for?

Right.

Unless they're like going to get fired or something. But at that point, like as a corporation, you can't really like threaten your people that well that much. So I, I think it's really, it is a personal choice. And it is interesting though, a lot of people are saying that do we still have privacy? Maybe not, but I beg to differ. So that's a whole other question. But yeah, I think cyber security is definitely a personal choice. It just was brought out by corporations because they didn't basically want to have everyone stealing their, their intellectual properties and they wanted to keep, keep stuff secure. And also from a government perspective, the US government was trying to keep all their trade secrets secure from, you know, cyber warfare and other, other countries taking it. So when it comes to like big companies like healthcare and you know, telecom systems and any infrastructure, like, I think that's where it started because it's super important to, that we keep everything locked down, especially in the U.S. but it kind of continued to trickle out into everything else and then corporate picked it up more and then, and then for some reason the tail end is US users, which actually should be the opposite.

Right, I agree. Now, you said a second ago, talking about people and their families, what are some of the best tips that you can give us to help keep our families safe online?

Yeah, I mean, I, I always get asked this and I always say the Same thing. And I want to lay on my head against the wall. It's, it's passwords. Passwords is like number one thing. And if, you know, I talked to Jen Easterly, who's the head of cisa, which is, you know, basically cybersecurity infrastructure for the US government, She's incredible, but she literally says the same thing. It's passwords and multifactor authentication. And I'm going to dive a little bit deeper into passwords, but basically, sure, a lot of people have the same like base password or the same password, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that people are good, are going to be these in our passwords, they're going to have the same base one and maybe change a few extra characters at the end. Now the issue comes in because once your password is leaked on the dark web, hackers, all they have to do, there's an algorithm that they can run and they can run like thousands of variations of that one base password and pretty easily crack your passwords for anything else. And so what people like to say is either come up with a passphrase, which is like a bunch of like seven or eight random words that make no sense together, but string them together that you'll remember and. Or like I do, I have a password manager which literally generates like really unique passwords and saves them in the app. Just make sure that you have a strong password protecting your password manager so people don't get in. But I like, passwords are so, so, so important. And the next thing is multi factor authentication, which is basically two ways of authenticating you yourself so you are who you say you are. Whether that's like you're logging in with the password as the first way and they send you a text message the second way, or they send you an email the second way. Sometimes they do a phone call. Any other like way of authenticating. If an app or business is allowing you to do two factor authentication or multi factor authentication, definitely opt into that. The third is vpn, which is if you're on public WI fi, which we are all on all the time. Like, I'd like to say that I'm not, but I, I am. If it's public, it's very easy because your stuff is going unencrypted to different places. So VPN encrypts your, your messages basically. It's like making up some random code so if someone actually does get in, they can't actually read what's going on. So VPNs are super important when it comes to public Wi Fi, but in general, like, try to give the least information out as possible. Like, I don't think people realize the Internet is a money pit for companies every single time you click, even if you hover. A lot of companies even collect when you hover over like a link to about to buy something like, or if you, it's not even like if your mouse is hovering. If you stay on one site for too long and you're looking at the same thing, it like tracks how long you've been on that one page. So every single thing you do online is getting tracked and monitored and sold. And so the least data that you can give them, do it. Also, just a fun fact. Incognito mode is really not incognito.

Right, right.

It's, it's just not, it's, it's incognito for your actual device, but it's not really incognito for anyone else that is hosting the website really. So, yeah, just, just know that the Internet, every time you log on is, is a money pit, that they're basically taking all your data and selling it. Especially in the US I'm not going to speak on behalf of other countries because some countries have it pretty locked down, but in the U.S. i mean, we're, we're known for, for business and it's, it's a business. Online is a business. So just be wary of where and who you're giving your data out to. If you don't have to create an account online, don't create an account. If you don't have to download an app online or download an app, don't download it. Just check out as a guest, like, try to eliminate as many, all these people getting your data as possible.

Got it. That, that's, that's, that's a lot of great advice there and I appreciate all of it. So in all of your experience, like, what's been like the most important that.

Thing that you have learned that you've.

Discovered out there that has really kind of changed how you look at cybersecurity?

Yeah. So I mean, I'll, I'll go from like two perspectives. So the first is I didn't realize how important cybersecurity education was until I started this channel. Like, I didn't really start it for cyber education. I started it. I did. I wanted to give some tips, but it wasn't like a, the, the main reason why I started was to get more people into cybersecurity as a career and A lot of my. All my first viral videos were all about the tips I was giving people to stay safe. And that's when I realized, you know, we're. We're in a day and age where we're literally given an iPad before we can speak, and no one's ever told us how to use it securely or how it works or what's going on.

Right.

And it's like taxes, but, like, you need to know how to. Like, you need to understand how to keep yourself safe and what to do and how it works, like, at a basic level, because you're literally constantly. I mean, when was the last time you could think about, like, you not being on technology for over an hour? I mean, besides sleeping?

Yeah.

So it's. I didn't realize. I mean, I know that's probably not the angle you're going for for that question, but I think it's a really interesting thing to talk about because I don't know why it's not talked about. I don't know why cyber security is never brought up. It's never taught. But also, in general, like I said, I kind of mentioned this before. Every time you go online, your data is being collected. Your data is being used for something that you most likely didn't give permission to. You probably implicitly gave permission when you accepted the cookies or you, you know, were shown a privacy policy and you ignored it. Because, let's be real, all these privacy policies are created for. For lawyers and. And for legal purposes and not for, you know, as individuals to understand. Yeah, that's. The other thing is, like, those two things. It's like we really need a cybersecurity education from, like, a general, basic human perspective to understand what it is. And then we also need to understand that everything we do is. Is being tracked.

Yeah, that's. So is there a. Is there a web browser out there that maybe collects less of your data? The one that you would say, hey, this. This one might be okay to use with the vpn. That will probably lessen the amount of data that you put out there. Is there. Do you have a recommendation there?

Yeah, I mean, I use Brave, but I know that it's. I'm trying to avoid every Google. Anything Google, like, even Google Maps.

Yeah, I understand.

Yeah.

Yeah. What do I. I mean, do you use a specific browser?

I use Firefox, and then also I'm starting to use Brave because Brave blocks all the ads on YouTube and I love them for that. So, you know, anytime I'm trying to, you know, go online, and learn how to, to do something. I don't want to have to sit here and watch, you know, 90 seconds worth of ads to just to watch the video. So, yeah, I think, I think Brave is good. Duckduckgo is another one that I think is okay too. So that's just my opinion though.

Yeah, I totally agree. I think those two are pretty great. But I mean, it's. When you're used to Google, it's really hard to get people to shop, but they don't realize that how much is being tracked, you can control it. So I do use Google sometimes, but I've actively nailed down my privacy settings and I've made some videos about how you can see what Google's tracking on you. Like, you can even see the exact type of person that they've like profiled you as to like marketing, which is crazy fun. It's a fun game. You should see, you should look at it. They'll like say like what they think your age is and like what you're interested. It's a whole thing. I should do another video about that because I did it like a year ago and it like blew up, but I haven't done it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, do it again. Tag me. And I don't want to see it. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, yeah. But it's, it's. If you can lock down a lot of your Google privacy preferences, I think it's a lot better. I mean, I don't know if it's actually going to listen as, I mean, if they're actually going to actively stop tracking, but an ignorance is bliss. I'm doing my part as much as I can to like, get off their radar.

But yeah, yeah, yeah. So it sounds like, you know, companies aren't really giving us a whole lot of privacy online. Right? Is that a fair assessment, you think?

Yeah, and I don't know if it's like because the companies are. It's not because companies are trying to be malicious. At the beginning of like when the Internet started, like data was king. Like if you had the most data, you can market the best you can understand, like who's your audience is you can like it was you wanted to collect as much data as possible and now it's like the opposite. So we're in this like, weird stage where like, they're trying to only collect what's needed, but then, you know, they, there's arguments on like, what's actually needed. So I, I do think, yeah, it's. The companies are tracking your data like crazy I don't know if it's. In my opinion, it's not like a malicious thing. It's just like their data is king at this point.

Exactly. So switching gears just a little bit here, explain to everybody. Give us an overview of what a data broker does and how much of our privacy is actually being sold.

A data broker is basically just a company that, like, collects data and gets sent data, and then they sell that type of data to other people for marketing purposes. And they're getting this data from apps and websites. They're getting this data from government, oddly enough. And really, sadly, the government sells our data. Like the DMV sells our data?

Yes, yes.

For money. Yeah. So you even think like, oh, it's a government website. No, they're sell. They're selling it. So they're getting it from, like, any website, any app, any government record, employee records, like, pretty much everything. And it goes to these data brokers. The data brokers kind of group them all together. And data brokers really focus on personal information. So it's not like all your social media handles or anything. I mean, some data brokers have that, but it's really like your first and last name, your email address, your phone number, your relatives, your home address, which is like a huge thing. Any addresses ever affiliated or associated with your name. And so I am terrified of them. Like, I. I started being terrified maybe like six or seven months into my social media journey. And my brother was. My brother and I were living the other time. He goes, caitlin, what happens if someone just comes and shows up at our door, like, what are you going to do? And I'm like, I don't know. And there's too many data brokers out there. Like, I was doing already, like, videos of how to delete your data from every data broker. But as you know, there's hundreds of data brokers out there. There are some, like, four key data brokers, but there's still literally hundreds and thousands of data brokers. So I just used a platform or a company called Delete Me and they literally have been a lifesaver. Like, I don't see. Knock on wood, I have not seen any of my personal information out in the public for a while because I've been trying to film more Delete Me videos, and I have to use, like, another person's name in order for me to show it, because I can't.

That is, not anymore. Yeah, right. Yeah. So you and I both work with Delete Me and what is it that you like about them that really sets Them apart because you talked about trusting, they were a lifesaver to you. Why is delete me so important?

Yeah, I mean, especially if you just want to maintain your privacy. I mean, I know there's like a lot of stalkers out there. I know people have like, a lot of just like personal issues that they don't want people having their like, home address and phone number or like their parents address or anything like that. I trust them because they've literally been able to basically wipe my personal information off the Internet. And it makes me feel so much like safer and more comfortable in my own home. Like, people always ask me like, oh, you work in cyber. You know, all the danger is like, do you feel safe? And I feel like when I'm working with them and I partner, that's why I partnered with them. I was like, when I work with them, I just feel like more people need to know about this because it's like the like, last and final step that I need in order to feel secure. Like, there's only so much I can do to protect my personal, like, self, like with passwords and everything like that. But data brokers keep popping up. Like, this is the other thing people don't realize. Every single time you log online, like go online, your data is being collected again. So just because you delete your data from key data brokers one time doesn't mean it's gone. Like, it'll probably come back in a couple months. And that's the greatest thing about Delete me is that they, they're doing these scans every two months to see if your data comes back up on all these hundreds and thousands of data brokers. And then they give you a report after being like, hey, here's where it all showed up. We're in the process of deleting these. These ones were deleted. We didn't find any new ones. And it just like a, like a breath of fresh air. I don't know if you felt the same way, but I just felt like that was like the final piece of like making sure that it felt secure online and that they were. They were it.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny, you know, my wife and I, we write, we, we refinanced our house maybe two years ago. And so like the lawyer came and we signed all the paperwork right there on the dining room table. And at the end of it, she's like, oh, by the way, you're probably going to start getting a lot of mailers for people congratulating you on buying your new home. That's just going to happen. And I thought to my. I just repopulated all of my data back out there, and now delete me is going to have to go back through and do all of this work again. And they did. And like, the next privacy report I got, they had deleted a ton of stuff because it had just shown up because of something that I had done. I wanted to refinance my house. And then all of a sudden, these people had all my information and address and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, I agree. Delete me helps me feel safer online in, in real life, too.

So, yeah, yeah, I started doing living trusts or not living trusts, but, like, I put it in a trust. Cause I was like, I don't want people knowing.

Yes, yeah, yeah, put it in a trust. Start an llc, that sort of thing. Buy your houses that way. That's. That's a great step. Absolutely.

So, Caitlin, looking to the future, what.

Do you think families need to know to protect themselves going forward here in 2024?

Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on, like, if we're talking about, you know, kids protection or like, overall family protection or let's see, financial protection. Like, there's so many different scams out there. And I'm actually speaking, I think, with ABC News later on about, like, how we can protect ourselves from scams because there's so many of them. Right. But in general, like, the, the kind of tips I gave is like, the password thing. Turn on multifactor authentication. And then when it comes to, like, not falling for scams, like, I really want people to focus on when they get a weird email or a text message or anything like that. Like, take a step back, take a breather. Does it make sense? Confirm the contact. Like, if they're like, oh, it's coming from a bank. Okay. Like, don't look at the message. Go off. Find your own bank phone number, Call that bank and confirm that they're actually who they. Who they say they are. Like, voice calls. There's been a lot of, like, voice calls, cloning. Like, have a safe word with your family. I also think from like, a. A kid perspective, because I, I follow a lot of, like, online family security accounts and I just, like, wouldn't. I would try to post your kid, like, the least amount. Like, just don't agree. And then also, if you are posting them, like, on a white background, don't post them like, in public or like, at the public park near your house. Because there's so many new AI softwares that allows one. If you don't wipe the metadata off of your camera off of your phone. They can get the metadata, which gives them the exact location of where it was taken. If you do happen to wipe the metadata off of the picture, there's still AI that can recognize backgrounds, like, very well and give you the exact coordinates of where that photo is taken. So, like, if you are doing it, like, make sure that you're doing it securely. Because people don't realize that, like, constantly posting photos of your kids and your family, like, everywhere you are, is really putting your family at risk. And now I think the next question is, okay, well, why would anyone go for me? I don't know why, but they do. Like, scammers go for anyone as long as they get money or, like, there's some type of value for them. So just be very mindful and weary of. And it's not just scammers. There's, like, a ton of creeps out there on the Internet. This is not just from, like, scamming purposes. Okay.

Right, right.

Like, I just be. I would just be very wary of, like, how and when and how often you post your kids. So, yeah, if you're looking at scam messages, just be very, like, if there's a gut feeling saying that's wrong. Like, trust your gut. Don't act urgently. Like, every single time there's a phishing email or scam email, it's always like, something's urgent. And when you're like, as a. As a mom, I can only imagine, like, when you're tired and there's so much going on and they're telling you your order is going to be canceled and you, like, act on impulse, like, that's when they get you. So just like, when you get weird messages, I really encourage people to, like, take a step back, breathe. Does it make sense? Confirm the contact, and then, like, don't. Don't click on any links and fill out information. Just don't do it.

Right. Yeah, I. I found your. Your reel that you did on the AI that can pinpoint where a picture was taken. Very creepy. I feel like AI has really just come on so strong in just, like, the last 12 months. That was. That was quite an education, seeing that. And the picture that you posted to test it wasn't like, oh, like, in front of the Washington Monument where anybody could figure it out. It was just like a random street, right?

Yeah. In New York, too. And I was like. I was just like, trying to test it out because obviously, and. And it's AI, so, like, it's gonna hit and it's gonna miss. Like, I got a few messages. Being like, I posted three and it didn't get any of them. I'm like, okay, well, like, the whole point is it can get them and it like, also most of these people are trying to like, see how good the AI is. So they're probably posting pictures of like, absolutely, like a white wall. But the whole point is, like, it's AI is going to continue to grow again, the met. There's still metadata that's attached to your photos. So it is, it's. It's nuts. Like, it's. I would just be really careful of like, everything you put out online. Like, is it necessary? Like, what's the point if it's doing it for your friends? Why don't you just send the picture to your friend? Like, why do you need to post it on. Great point, social media.

Great point. So, Caitlin, thank you so much for talking with me today. Where can people find out more about you?

Yeah, I'm in all my socials. It's at Cybersecurity Underscore Girl on Instagram. And then at TikTok, it's just at Cybersecurity Girl with no underscore. We're working on fixing that. But yeah, that's probably the best place to find me if you want more like professional, obviously. I, I work in cybersecurity too, on a normal, normal everyday job. So I'm just Caitlin Sarian on LinkedIn too, and definitely follow along because they do a lot of more professional tips. I mean, all of them are tips nonetheless. But yeah, I'm just happy to be here. So thanks so much, Andy. I appreciate it.

Hey, I appreciate it. God bless you and your mission.

Thank you. You.

Well, that's all that we have for the SecureDad podcast for today. Thank you, friend, for listening. Thanks again to Caitlyn for being on the show. And as a follow up, Kaitlyn did hit 400,000 followers on Instagram while recording our interview.

I'd like to say that I had.

Something to do with that. Maybe you can follow her on Instagram with the username CybersecurityGirl. Take back your privacy and your personal data with help from DELETEME. Go to joindeleteme.com dad to get started. Grab your copy of Home Security, the Secure Dad's Guide at Amazon or at the link I have set up for you in the show notes. If you'd like to know more about the SecureDad, join me on Instagram and X. My username for both platforms is the SecureDad. And of course, my site's available to you 24 7. @the securedad.com I'm Andy Murphy, reminding you that our safety is our own responsibility.