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

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

This week, Jason is joined by former TikTok cybersecurity lead and tech influencer Caitlin Sarian aka Cybersecurity Girl! Caitlin dives into ways to protect your data online, her journey working at TikTok and how it started with them asking her to speak, debunking conspiracy theories, what she believes the biggest cybersecurity threat in social media is, and the essentials to strong passwords PLUS,  how to check if your accounts have been breached, how to get your personal information removed from the internet, what the pay range is, how to shop safely online, her insider perspective on cracking the algorithm and so much more!  It’s an episode you can’t afford to miss!  Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: John Gurney Guest: Cybersecurity Girl  Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial 

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets, More Than Money Edition. Caitlin Sirian, she is an ex-Tick-Tac cybersecurity 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, cybersecurity, she has built an amazing, 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, I mean, anything, right?

I mean, just the inner workings of TikTok and the algorithm of TikTok. And I mean, cybersecurity now more than ever is so important. If this stuff gets hacked, it's at jeopardy. It's like your bank account being hacked. So Caitlin's going to help us through that as we have questions. If you have questions and you want to come on and ask Caitlin a question, put it in the chat, or I will unmute guys and make sure you can come on. But with that being said, Caitlin, thank you so much for joining us.

Caitlin, 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 always wanted to, I'll give you a little bit of background.

I always wanted to start my TikTok right after they move 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 my clients to not use TikTok until they moved over to the U.S. 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 journey with TikTok and my cybersecurity channel. And ironically, TikTok reached out to me to actually speak for them at a conference. And it was crazy. I was like,

I actually couldn't end 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 lot of conspiracy theories as to why I think they continue to hit the news. But 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 was entertaining what are some of that 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 on 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 U.S. doesn't have full control over. Their algorithm is like top secret. And I mean, I think the other competitors are very much controlled by U.S. and big companies within the U.S. And so they can 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 completely blown out of proportion.

So I honestly think it's because the U.S. 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 information that, Yeah. It's all. 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 me in the chat. You want to come on and ask a question. Please come on in. Caitlin was an ex-Tick-Ticot cybersecurity leads. 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. 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 gods, like where do you even start? Yeah. So their head of all of global cybersecurity reached out to me to come to a conference and like, you know, talk to their employee 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 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 bring cybersecurity into a more positive light and more fun and educational view rather than it just being like, we all know those typical trainings that in corporate where you kind of just check the box and it's not really helpful. But yeah, that's kind of how it started. And then we continue just to talk. I love their leadership team. It's amazing. And 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'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 going to let you think about it because I'm going to ask you the golden question. If I gave you $100,000 right now and you had to bet will TikTok be banned in five years from now in the United States, will it be? Don't answer it yet. Think about it. Before we get to that, let me ask you this. The biggest cybersecurity 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? I 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're 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 risks 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 badass. 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 you like the basic most 101 sitting, a big on takeaways that all of us here can walk away doing today to put our social medias or online presence in a better or more secure manner? What is one thing we could all do? Oh man. There's so many things. And they're, they're pretty easy. Give us like three. Give us your top three. So the first one is passwords. And I, and I,

hate saying that it sounds so annoying and I understand that it sounds annoying but passwords are a big thing um 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 at 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 multi-factor authentication, which really is like 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. 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's interesting is there's someone actually that's going to be on the finale The Bachelor Tonight that I managed. And ironically, right before this, he had someone try and go into his Instagram account and hack it. He sent me the screenshot of it. And the first thing I said to it was like double authentication, double authentication, double authentication. So that's a big one.

When you say password, like I, my passwords are the most basic bullshit in the world. Your dog name? So like, but like who is actually explained to me from a text? 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 specific email or login or

username name. And so it's really easy for people to find and run those password. 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 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 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 it's that have I been appone.com, but I can give it to your followers in a second or I can write it in the chat. But 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 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. Pond. Okay. They're missing the A. It's actually poed, but I say pawned. And actually my first viral video, I said pawned and people like exploded on me. They're like, you can't be in cybersecurity. if you don't know how to say poned. And I'm like, it's the weirdest phrase. Just leave it alone. It's true. All right. Hillary, come on. What do you got? Yeah. So 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 LastPassword is an example of the 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 trust one password. LastPass is I would definitely not do. I think they've had 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, you know, servers and then it's easy for people to get in, or if it's just communicating between 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, Hillary. Awesome. Kaley, I saw you had a question. He says there are a program that you would recommend that checks for any breaches your accounts could have. I think you said that though before have I been pawn.com. So that would answer that question, right? Just using have I been pond.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 FBI or CIA agent. So 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 someone 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 before 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 calling I remember that 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

yeah no I feel you I mean as a cybersecurity person on TikTok I'm like I have her biggest target on my back because people just want to try to hack the cybersecurity girl I use a lot of different platforms one of them is delete me it helps literally it scans and delete your information off of the

yeah the main data servers. So I would definitely start with that. I started doing it manually a long time ago, and actually some of my bio videos are like how you can go about doing it manually. But honestly, I don't know how much it is, maybe like $100 a year or something. It's worth it because they find it all. I think they scan like 1,200 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 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 recheck to make sure that 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 company called Cloaked, which I think is still in beta. I think it's launching in September. But they allow you to generate real working phone numbers, emails, and passwords and 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 to do not track cookies. Anytime you try to like buy something new on a website, 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 out there. but with my personal information, 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 the 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 brand 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, phone number is 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 software 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 Amazon 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 I'm trying to understand the question. You're saying like there's like three of you that are all on the same Instagram like business account and then 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 off. 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 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 just found out a couple of 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 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 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. I go through the website because at the beginning you do have to give a lot, 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. Well, thank you. Yeah, of course. Okay. Question about just

the industry, you know, training secrets. It sounds very technical. It sounds like this is like extremely, you know, 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 side.

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, you know, training and awareness, governance, risk and compliance, data privacy, data protection. And honestly, like you said, you have to outthink the hacker. 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 cyber security. 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 it 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. 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 U.S. probably starting 70K, 80K, 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 150 to 250 range as a base. Okay. Amazing. 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 $100,000 question, $100,000. You double your money if you're right. Is TikTok ban in the United States in five years from now? What do you think? I'm going to say, I hope not, but also given this, state of the U.S. I don't have a lot of faith. So I don't know. I'm going to say I hope not. Okay. I hope not. So we're going to say no. We'll say we're going to put that in follow back up

in five years and see what happened. We walked over some things that 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 question here. Okay. I'll get to that in a second. I got to get to like anything. You're in the influencing space. And then also you work for TikTok, are there anythings 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 no or here. 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 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 how 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 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 that's the easiest and simplest way to say it. And people 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 compete with Google. And so you want to make long caption. You want to make it SEO friendly because 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 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 best thing to do. Yeah, I use TikTok all that. 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 to online shopping and putting in all this information? Yeah, that's a great question. I think one is verifying 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 U.S., which is totally fine if it's not based in the U.S., but they might be based

in a little bit sketchier countries. And they're, you know, ripping off photos from other places. And it just, I would just, one, make sure that the website is legit. And there is actually a few websites that you can check where it's scanned and it will tell you like how long the website's been up running, where it's based, and if there's like any red flags. Also, the easiest way to tell is if it's an HTTP S, but S is secure. If it's an HTTP, I probably wouldn't buy anything off of it. And I probably 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,

said is try not to give all of your information out, like all of your personal details. Like if it's not required, don't do it. And if it, if they force you to do it, like, I don't even have 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 it 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 data that you're giving to these random websites, because surprisingly, these smaller websites 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 the 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. idea, restore your data, probably on their local computer and, like, if they get breached and all this data's 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 and 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 to make sure that all companies are 100% safe, secure and just everything is that 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 to 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. So 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's starting it. What would you say, Kailin?

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 you're going to coding, you need to learn out of code. But for non-technical roles, it's really your network is your net worth.

And I strongly believe that if you're spending 10 hours a day studying for 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 job environment. So I think just continue to have a passion for learning and explore. 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, of regulations protecting against these types of platforms? Any thoughts and 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 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 you a real name, because if you do get hired, they're going to do background checks, and then they're going to wonder what a year? So I plan for a job. They can have my information for 10 years? I think legally, it also depends on the country. If I remember correctly when I was working into the law firm a couple of years ago, I think if you didn't get the job, 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 work for a company. Because I think that's like this kind of a statute

of limitation type of thing for suit. I'm not a lawyer, so don't take my advice. But that's what I remember 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 Trane Secrets. I just got a notification from McAfee that my Twitter was breached on the dark web this weekend. So the timing is great. Then between the bachelor's 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, the 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 ask you asked about the difference between Canada and U.S. social media influencing? Can you just tell us a little bit more about that. If Blake, you can unmute Tamara, Tamara. Tamara, thank you. Yes, we could do. My question is, is there a difference with social media influence between

and US? Because most social influences based in 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 influence. So that's my question. Yeah, so 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 the rates will be lower if they're 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 long. 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 confine. 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, Kalin, this is absolutely amazing to just hear more about this. It's also kind of terrifying. So I know, I know tight buy stuff up, take ramen and Pino right off all my password. So hopefully you're knowing here, it gives that a shot. But Caitlin, where can 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 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 cybersecurity girl.net. It's still a little buggy. I'm working there. I mean, it's there, but I'm working through finishing that app. 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 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 TikTok and then cybersecurity, underscore girl for Instagram. Same with YouTube, et cetera. If you want to find me on LinkedIn, too,

I forgot, was it Tanya that she was going into cybersecurity? So we had like a LinkedIn group and a Discord group for people that want to go and get into cybersecurity as well. There's a lot coming in the space. Book deal, hopefully to help people to say and 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 cybersecurity goal. That's not up to date. Amazing. We really, really appreciate all this information. Hopefully you save at least one of us. Some trouble is 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 is huge. So thank you for coming out. We appreciate it. And we will see you soon. Thank you again.