This Conversation Could Save You Thousands of Dollars

If you’ve ever clicked “Accept All Cookies,” ignored software updates, saved your passwords, or logged into free Wi-Fi, you have to hear this. The little “harmless” things you do online are exactly what scammers count on. In today’s conversation, Mel sits down with award-winning cybersecurity expert Caitlin Sarian (aka “Cybersecurity Girl”) to give you the short and simple checklist of things that protect your money, your identity, and your privacy online. You don’t need to understand cybersecurity. You just need to stop treating online habits like they’re harmless, because they can leave you open for a scam. This isn’t about being paranoid, it’s about realizing that a few tiny changes can shut down most online threats. This conversation will educate and inform you. In this episode, you’ll learn: -The biggest cybersecurity mistake almost everyone makes (and how to fix it fast) -The #1 Venmo scam happening right now, and exactly what to do if it happens to you -What to do immediately if your phone is lost or stolen -The 5 essential moves that protect you from most online threats -The fastest way to spot scam links, fake emails, and panic-based phone calls -How to protect your parents, your kids, and your entire family from getting scammed -Simple settings to check tonight: camera, microphone, location, and account access Bookmark this episode and share it with your partner, your parents, and your friends. This is the kind of information that can prevent a mistake you can’t undo. For more resources related to today’s episode, click here for the podcast episode page: https://www.melrobbins.com/episode/episode-371/ Follow The Mel Robbins Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themelrobbinspodcast I’m just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I’ll see you in the next episode. In this episode: 00:00 Meet The Guest 6:11 What Cybersecurity Means & Why It Matters 7:54 Privacy Tips: How to Protect Your Information Online 13:59 Public Wi‑Fi Risks: What to Know and What to Avoid 18:55 Password Security: Password Managers, Security Questions, & Notes App Risks 24:07 Common Cybersecurity Mistakes That Get You Hacked 30:52 Common Payment App Scams & How to Avoid Them 37:08 What to Do After a Data Breach: Step-by-Step Damage Control 38:04 The Fastest Way to Stop Identity Theft 39:27 How to Protect Seniors From Online Scams 41:00 Kids Online Safety Tools: How to Protect Your Children Online 42:53 Sextortion Help: What to Do + Where to Report Online Crimes 44:48 What to Do Immediately If Your Phone Is Stolen 46:32 The Risk of Wearable Technology 51:22 3 Privacy Settings to Check in Your Apps (Do This Now) 54:21 Facial Recognition Explained: How It Works & Privacy Risks 58:31 Can Home Security Systems & Cameras Be Hacked? 1:04:47 5 Essential Online Safety Tips to Prevent Hacking & Scams — Follow Mel: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@melrobbins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melrobbins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melrobbins Website: http://melrobbins.com​ — Sign up for Mel’s newsletter: https://melrob.co/sign-up-newsletter A note from Mel to you, twice a week, sharing simple, practical ways to build the life you want. — Subscribe to Mel’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins​?sub_confirmation=1 — Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday & Thursday! https://melrob.co/spotify https://melrob.co/applepodcasts https://melrob.co/amazonmusic — Looking for Mel’s books on Amazon? Find them here: The Let Them Theory: https://amzn.to/3IQ21Oe The Let Them Theory Audiobook: https://amzn.to/413SObp The High 5 Habit: https://amzn.to/3fMvfPQ The 5 Second Rule: https://amzn.to/4l54fah

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 0:09Mel Robbins?

  Here's something I did that I'm not proud of, but I'm going to tell you anyway. So yesterday I got this pop-up notification that said, "Update Apple settings." And you know what I did? Click, ignore. Then I got another one from Zoom and you know what I did? Click, ignore. You ever do that? I mean, why do I need to update all this stuff all the time? Maybe you're a little bit like me in that way. You kind of accept all the cookies on every website. You share your location so Uber Eats can find you no matter when you're ordering. You grant camera access to apps so that you can use them, duh. Well, our guest today, a cybersecurity expert, told me that all these little things that I'm doing, and I know you do them too, they are making you and me an easy target for scammers.

• 0:54Mel Robbins?

  In fact, I bet you lock your door at night. But here you and I are leaving the door wide open for hackers to just walk right into our accounts. Now, before I even get into this, I need to tell you something. I didn't think I needed to care about cybersecurity. I thought cybersecurity was something for like tech people, or banks, or corporations, or governments. I didn't think it had anything to do with me and you. Then I met Caitlin Sarian, also known as Cybersecurity Girl to the millions of people that follow her online. And she told me that all these little things that you and I do, you know what we're doing? We are giving the keys to our accounts to hackers. They can get in in less than 30 seconds. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this isn't just a tech person's problem.

• 1:40Mel Robbins?

  This is everyone's problem. Caitlin has worked in cybersecurity consulting for over a decade. She's an award-winning cybersecurity expert. At EY, for example, she performed global cybersecurity awareness assessments across 20 key cyber sectors. At TikTok, she was the global lead of cybersecurity advocacy. And now, well, now Caitlin travels all over the world. She works with publicly traded companies consulting on compliance related to data, our data. And privacy laws. She's here to give you and me the step by step, simple things that we need to do, that you need to do with your kids, that you need to do with your grandparents and your aging parents. She's going to tell you the number one scam right now on Venmo.

• 2:25Mel Robbins?

  And if you don't hear about this, you're going to fall for it. She's also going to tell you the five simple things that you can do as soon as you're done listening or watching this that will protect you from 95% of the threats online. Caitlin says everyone, that means you, that means me, is an easy target to be scammed online because we were never taught how to properly protect ourselves until today.

• 3:01Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. It is such an honor to be together and to spend this time with you. I am so glad you're here. And if you're a new listener or you're here because someone shared this with you, I just wanted to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Today, you and I are going to learn to protect yourself online from award winning cybersecurity expert, Caitlin Sarian. Now Caitlin has been working in cybersecurity for a decade. At EY, she performed Global Cybersecurity Awareness Assessment across 20 key cyber sectors. She then went on to TikTok, where she was the Global Lead of Cybersecurity Advocacy.

• 3:44Mel Robbins?

  And now she travels the world working with publicly traded companies, helping them with cybersecurity and compliance with privacy laws and data. And for the last three years, Caitlin has been on a mission to make cybersecurity easy, not just to the big companies she's consulting with, but to real people like you and me. She has been recognized with multiple awards, including Cybersecurity Woman of the World, Cybersecurity Educator of the Year, Top Cyber News Magazine 40 Under 40 and 2024. You're going to love her. She's brilliant, down to earth, and she's going to teach you and me the simple, fast changes that will protect you, your money, and your privacy.

• 4:28Mel Robbins?

  Please help me welcome Caitlin Sarian to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here.

• 4:34Mel Robbins?

  This is one of these conversations that I am equal parts so excited for. And I'm also feeling a little nervous because I know I'm going to learn that I'm doing a lot of things wrong. So do you get that a lot with people?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the thing is, you're not supposed to know all this. Like, we were never taught this. So you shouldn't feel like embarrassed or ashamed by it.

• 4:57Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  We're gonna like empower you with the right things to do.

• 4:59Mel Robbins?

  Okay, I love that. And here's where I want to start. What could change about my life if I take everything to heart that you are about to teach us about cybersecurity, protecting ourselves, making smart decisions, especially online? What could change about my life if I apply everything you're about to teach us?

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So cyber scams are massive right now. And actually, that economy is the third largest economy in the world. That's how much money they're making from these cyber scams.

• 5:29Mel Robbins?

  Wait a minute, the third?

• 5:30Speaker 01

  The largest. US, China, cybersecurity scams.

• 5:33Mel Robbins?

  What?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's more than, I think, Germany and Japan's economy combined. So it's not a matter of if it happens to people, it's a matter of when. And no one's talking about it. And a lot of times when people are getting scammed, they're ashamed of it. So the point of this podcast is to empower you and give you cybersecurity routines that you can do. Simple, easy, actionable tips that you can take back and start incorporating into your life. So you feel safer and more protected online.

• 5:59Mel Robbins?

  Wow. Well, you've made cybersecurity relatable for millions of people who follow you online, who watch your content, in the ways that you consult. What is it the wake up call that you want people to have in terms of what we're going to talk about today?

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if you're listening to this on a phone, an iPad, or a computer, like, this is for you. Because what people don't realize is they don't think they need cyber. But anytime you go online, you need to understand, like, these cyber tips and like, Really protect yourself because no one has taught us how to protect ourselves. We're given a phone before we can even speak. And then all of a sudden, we're expected to know what to do with it. But no one's ever taught us like the key things of like, hey, this is what's happening in the background. Here are some simple things you can do to protect yourself. So this is why it's so important for everyday people to be listening to this and to like learn. And again, it is not supposed to be scary. This is not scary. This is for everyone. And it's just simple things that you can start incorporating and weaving into your life.

• 6:57Mel Robbins?

  So it's sort of like when you learn to drive a car, they teach you to put the seatbelt on. They teach you to look right or left. They teach you where the brake is. And so you're going to teach us how to put the seatbelt on and be a little safer with our with our cyber life.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Exactly. Brush your teeth and wash your face. I mean, those hygiene tips were always like really hard to learn when you're a kid, right? You think it takes extra time, like, oh, I want to just go to bed. Like, do I really have to? And those extra, you know, one or two minutes really saves you in the future. So it's literally the exact same thing as cyber. Ultimately, cybersecurity is a risk-based decision. I'm going to give you why they're collecting this data and what they do with it and how it can be used against you. And you can decide, hey, I don't think that's really a risk for me and my family. Or you can say, hey, that is a risk. I'm going to start trying to implement, you know, X, Y, Z.

• 7:41Mel Robbins?

  Well, what worries me is that we're at a point where the technology and AI in particular.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:47Mel Robbins?

  It just feels like the scams are getting worse and worse and worse. You just said it's the third largest economy.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:53Mel Robbins?

  And so while these may have been things in the past that we felt like, eh, not that big of a deal. I'm starting to feel like maybe it's becoming a bigger deal.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it is becoming a bigger deal.

• 8:04Mel Robbins?

  Let's start with the basics.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:06Mel Robbins?

  What exactly is cybersecurity?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  To me, cybersecurity is protecting your digital footprint. And your digital footprint is pretty much every single thing you do online.

• 8:17Mel Robbins?

  So give me an example of what is part of your digital footprint that might surprise you that, oh, that's part of my digital footprint?

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, any of the apps that you use, the games that you play on your phone, the websites you go to, the accounts that you make online, like every single thing that you're doing builds a larger and larger digital footprint.

• 8:36Mel Robbins?

  Everything.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 8:38Mel Robbins?

  So I'm basically-

• 8:39Speaker 01

  It's all being recorded in some way, shape or form.

• 8:40Mel Robbins?

  All of it?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:41Mel Robbins?

  Even when I think it's not?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then the incognito is actually not incognito. That is incognito for your browser. So people are like, oh, if I go on, you know, private mode, that's going to help protect. No, that is private mode for you. So you go in incognito mode when you you might want to buy your husband a gift and your husband will go on your computer that he won't see that you went on that website. But that website is still able to see that you went on that website.

• 9:01Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so hold on a second. See, already I'm like, wait a minute.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  We'll go, we'll get into this. We'll get into this.

• 9:06Mel Robbins?

  Uh, so you were talking about incognito mode, meaning where you're like, okay, I think I'm going to be sneaky.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:12Mel Robbins?

  And I'm going to put onto my browser, whatever browser you use, the incognito mode where I think if I go to a website.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:19Mel Robbins?

  The website doesn't know that it's Mel Robbins there, but that's not what's happening.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 9:23Mel Robbins?

  What's happening?

• 9:24Speaker 01

  What's happening is that your computer is not saving the cookies and tags and pixels that are are automatically loaded. So cookies, tags and pixels, you accept cookies pretty much every time you go online.

• 9:35Mel Robbins?

  I do. It's really annoying. And then I, well, we're going to get into this.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  We're getting into that. Okay. But yeah, so it it actually just doesn't do it on your own computer, but they can technically still see who on the other side who's on.

• 9:44Mel Robbins?

  Whoa.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:45Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  But don't worry.

• 9:46Mel Robbins?

  I'm feeling like I've made a lot of mistakes. Okay.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  There's no such thing as mistakes. There's lessons learned.

• 9:51Mel Robbins?

  Okay. And you have so many specific lessons and specific things that you want us to do, starting now. And so I want to start with some quickfire questions. And so as an expert in cybersecurity, you never hand out your real birthday or name or phone number online? Why?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Correct. Before we even get into that, I want to say one thing because I think we're going to go through this list and people are going to be like, oh, my gosh, I do all this, all these things. At the end of this podcast, I'm going to give you the five things that are like absolutely essential.

• 10:23Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  These ones are like a little bit more for like people that want more privacy like myself. So I don't want people to get worried like, you know, a couple of questions in like, oh, my gosh, I do this all the time. I'm going to explain why. And I'm also going to go through the pros and cons, right? So back to your question with like, why I don't give like my real identity out online. My question back to you is why do they need it?

• 10:46Mel Robbins?

  Uh, so they can ship me all the stuff I'm buying that I don't need?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  But why do they need your name? Why do they need your phone number?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Has they ever called you?

• 10:57Mel Robbins?

  No, but it's required.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  If you have a Google Voice number, Google allows you to like generate a number that gets forwarded to your real number.

• 11:04Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  So I kind of usually give that if I absolutely need to give a phone number. I don't ever give like my real information.

• 11:10Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  And that's because there's constantly profiles being made about you. And the more information you have online, the more it's sold to more and more people. My manager, for example, got a letter, like a handwritten letter in her mail with a picture of her house saying, "We're in, we know exactly where you live, we've been tracking and monitoring you."

• 11:30Mel Robbins?

  What?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  "We will take it, don't worry, we'll be nice, we'll take it out if you pay us this much money in crypto." That's because her address was online. These scams are getting more and more intense. And so if I don't have to give like my real information, especially to like places that aren't shipping to you, right? If you're just like signing up for an account, like why? Why have we thought we need to be so truthful about who we are online? So I always tell people, make up an like alternate persona. Different name, different date of birth, you know? Technically not a different address unless it's a, you know, shipping to you like Amazon, you obviously have to give your right address. But like if it's for a movie theater, why do they need to know your address?

• 12:08Mel Robbins?

  It's so true. I hadn't even thought about this. And I guess it's because I have such a hard time keeping track of the actual information.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:17Mel Robbins?

  But if you have a alias, so you have a name that you use whenever you sign up for a newsletter.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 12:25Mel Robbins?

  You have a phone number and you just mentioned that you could get a free Google phone number. It can be forwarded to your phone or not.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:32Mel Robbins?

  And that's the one that you use. You have a different email address that is only for signups.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:38Mel Robbins?

  And now you are limiting the information that's out there. And it didn't even occur to me that you could ship packages to your address to a different name.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's your house. Doesn't matter who's addressed to it.

• 12:52Mel Robbins?

  Wow, okay. You never create online accounts that you don't need, why?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Well, again, more information out there, like, again, every single website wants you to create an account because that's the marketing world that we live in, right? It's way better for them. And we don't need to create an account. It's like, again, movie, everything, movie theaters, reservations. We went to a spa here and they're like, please create an account. I was like, I told my boyfriend, give me your, give me your phone, I'm gonna create an account. And it's like, again, random email. There are also sites out there where you can generate real working phone numbers and emails, and it will just all go to the one app versus like, you know, going actually into your inbox.

• 13:32Mel Robbins?

  Well, I'll tell you, I've changed my cellphone number probably three times in the last four years because it's ended up online.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:38Mel Robbins?

  And I have changed my email, I don't know how many times. And because of that reason, that people find it, I end up on email lists, it's just unbelievable. You know, as a cybersecurity expert, you also never post vacation photos while you're still away, why?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So besides like the actual physical threat, right? Like, everyone's like, oh, you know, people know that you're away from your house, they're gonna, you know, burglarize, which is still accurate. Scammers now are getting even more specific on what they can do. So there's a lot of, it's called open source intelligence. It's anything you do online is really easy to find if you're, if you're public, right?

• 14:14Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  And so for open source intelligence, if they see you and they say, oh, you're at a Marriott hotel in the Bahamas, okay, I'm gonna call the Marriott hotel, pretend I'm you, and try to get more information, maybe get your credit card, do, do whatever, just cause like a mess. So there's a lot of social engineering from that perspective. And also scammers have gotten really, really smart with timing when they do scam calls. So say, for example, someone wanted to call my parents and say they're me, right?

• 14:41Mel Robbins?

  This scares the hell out of me.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they wait until I'm on a flight. So if my parents get a call from me, they can't actually get ahold of me because my phone is off. And that's actually a real life thing. I've talked to many, many people in this cyber industry saying that that has like ramped up. So there's a lot of weird risks that you don't realize that come with it. So whenever I go anywhere, I post after, at least a week after, I don't actually post the exact location. I'm not going to post the exact hotel. I'm not going to post the flight I was on, but I am going to post like, hey, I went to the Bahamas, wherever that may be. Usually just tag the city. I don't have to tag exactly where I stayed. I don't have to tag exactly where I went. And it's fine. You're still there. I mean, what's the difference? The people that know that you're in the Bahamas at that time,

• 15:24Speaker 01

  know that you're there. And the other people that don't need to know, find out a week later or two weeks later.

• 15:29Mel Robbins?

  I mean, it makes perfect sense. As a cybersecurity expert, you also warn people about free Wi-Fi. Why?

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yes. So the free Wi-Fi is not free. I always say if there's any free product or app, you are the product.

• 15:43Mel Robbins?

  Okay, say that again?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  If there's any free product or app, you are the product. They are using your data and selling it in some way, shape or form, or selling you ads. You are literally the product of anything that's free.

• 15:55Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  So that's one thing. Free Wi-Fi especially, there's different types of free Wi-Fi, right? There's like free Wi-Fi in airports where you know, you connect to the free Starbucks Wi-Fi, or there's free Wi-Fi in airplanes. So we're going to go through a few different

• 16:09Mel Robbins?

  Okay, please. Because now I'm thinking about, okay, what's happening here?

• 16:14Speaker 01

  I want to just let you kind of visualize how Wi-Fi works, right? You're connected and let's say you go on Facebook and you send a message to your friend. That message is literally like flying through cyberspace. Just imagine your own little tunnel. It's flying through the tunnel to your friend, right? The issue is when you're on open free Wi-Fi, it's usually unencrypted, which means that anyone can go in and out of that tunnel and see what you're doing if they want to, if they know how to.

• 16:39Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  So.

• 16:41Mel Robbins?

  So hold on, let me just make sure I'm tracking.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:43Mel Robbins?

  So if you're sitting at a airport and you've logged on to the free Wi-Fi.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:49Mel Robbins?

  Okay. And I'm texting my husband who's back at her house, and I'm texting him something related to a bill that came in and banking information and hey, I forgot my credit card. Could you send me a photo of the back of the card kind of thing? You're saying that since it's not encrypted, it's just floating through the Wi-Fi?

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:11Mel Robbins?

  If there's somebody that's really smart and knows how to get into those pipes, they can see the stuff?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:18Mel Robbins?

  What?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  So every time you do any data, like you do anything online. Well, the good thing is, you're not an idiot.

• 17:26Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  The good thing is, most of the US websites now are secure.

• 17:30Mel Robbins?

  How do you know?

• 17:31Speaker 01

  If you go to the website, the URL, the, you know, www dot whatever.

• 17:35Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  It says HTTPS.

• 17:38Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  The S stands for secure.

• 17:40Mel Robbins?

  Oh, hold on. So if it's only HTTP?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Not secure.

• 17:44Mel Robbins?

  What? The S means it's secure?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  S means it's secure.

• 17:46Mel Robbins?

  Why do I not know this?

• 17:48Speaker 01

  A lot of people don't know this. It's like a normal, like, people don't know this. No one taught us this.

• 17:53Mel Robbins?

  You're here, Caitlin. Thank God you're here. Okay. So HTTPS, I'm looking for the S. Did you get that? Look for the S. If you're, if you're watching this on YouTube right now, I want you to look up at the, at the URL.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Confirm that I'm not BSing you.

• 18:07Mel Robbins?

  And see if there's an S.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if there's an S and most, I would say a majority of, in the US, it's pretty secure. Like, almost every single website is HTTPS.

• 18:17Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  But it gets a little fishy is when you go overseas and you start connecting to random Wi-Fi's. Because, you know, when we're overseas, we just don't want to use our data. It's expensive and people want to connect to Wi-Fi. And that's where I feel like a lot of people get in a pickle.

• 18:29Mel Robbins?

  So what do you do instead? What do you do, like, what, what would be the thing that you should do if you're in a situation where you're on Wi-Fi?

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:38Mel Robbins?

  And it's not encrypted, but you need to send something?

• 18:41Speaker 01

  So first, I would, if you really, if you need to be on Wi-Fi, I would just, like, connect to public Wi-Fi. But I wouldn't do anything like that secure, like no banking or like really intense stuff. Like scrolling Facebook, TikTok, whatever, social media, fine.

• 18:54Mel Robbins?

  Getting a map down so you can figure out where you're going.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Totally fine. Music, whatever. But if you're starting to do banking, that's where it gets fishy. So what I would do before connecting to public Wi-Fi, I would probably try to tether my phone instead and use my phone data.

• 19:07Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  That's way more secure, completely different. Um, if you have to use Wi-Fi, I would get a VPN, which is a virtual private network, literally as it sounds. It makes your network private. It gives you your own little freeway, separate from the public Wi-Fi.

• 19:22Mel Robbins?

  So is a VPN the same thing as when you go to your cell phone provider and you get a little, like? Uh, block that's like a mobile.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  No, that's a hotspot.

• 19:32Mel Robbins?

  Okay. See, I don't know what I'm talking about.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  So hotspot does provide wifi and you can use that too.

• 19:36Mel Robbins?

  But it's not necessarily secure?

• 19:38Speaker 01

  I don't know if there's a, I don't think there's a VPN built in. No.

• 19:41Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:42Mel Robbins?

  All right. So let me ask you this, because we were talking about airplanes.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:45Mel Robbins?

  What about on an airplane? Should I not be using wifi in a plane? Like, what's happening?

• 19:49Speaker 01

  I want everyone to realize anytime you log into anyone's wifi, you are on their network. It's like on borrowed time, right? Like you are doing things on their network. So whether you're doing things on the free Starbucks wifi or the airplane wifi, you are still on, like say, for example, if you fly American, you are on American's wifi and they could technically have your data if, unless you do a VPN.

• 20:11Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Which is why a lot of like companies, when you travel, they're like, you have to use our VPN in order to make sure that it's safe. Um, but when you're.

• 20:18Mel Robbins?

  But the question that I have about plane wifi, and I don't know why I'm asking this about planes, but for some reason I feel like you're in a seat, the laptop's open, is there some, you know?

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Do you have a privacy screen?

• 20:32Mel Robbins?

  No.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Okay. No, we'll go through that.

• 20:33Mel Robbins?

  Okay. Well, so, so that, so you know, you're like, is there a hacker sitting near me somewhere? That's, no, okay. That's not happening.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 20:41Mel Robbins?

  Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  You're good. I, my, the point of this is not to ever scare you. It's just to teach you what people can do. Is it gonna happen like that frequently? This stuff, not often.

• 20:52Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:53Mel Robbins?

  Um, one other thing as a cybersecurity expert that you never do is you never save your logins in your notes or in your browser. Why?

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Well, so for iPhones specifically in your notes, it gets updated to iCloud, right? And if your iCloud gets hacked, which a lot of people have like hacked accounts, especially iCloud's, if you're reusing your password, that means they have your passwords to every single thing. However, if you have a, a password for your notes, like there's a new way now you can lock down your notes on your actual phone.

• 21:24Mel Robbins?

  Oh.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  You can, yeah, you can set a password or you can use your Face ID and it will, it will double lock it. So I would definitely do that.

• 21:30Mel Robbins?

  Okay. I'm making a note right now that I just want to pass through to my notes.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Again, see these little things, like once you turn that on, you don't have to worry about it, right? Like, it's like little things where you're like, okay. I don't want people to have access to it, but I also want it easily accessible. I personally use a password manager.

• 21:44Mel Robbins?

  Like, what's a password manager?

• 21:46Speaker 01

  So there's like softwares that like help you create and store.

• 21:50Mel Robbins?

  You mean like LastPass?

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, LastPass, uh, OnePassword, Keeper Security there. And then even iPhone has a password manager on the new phone.

• 21:59Mel Robbins?

  Oh.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, for free.

• 22:00Mel Robbins?

  But that one's safe?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  That one, that one is safe. As a cyber professional, I try to not have all my eggs in one basket. And since I use iPhone all the time, I'm like, well, if they get into my iPhone somehow, I don't want them to also have my passwords. But it's still secure. I'd rather have you do that.

• 22:14Mel Robbins?

  So is the password safe on your iPhone unlocked by your iPhone password?

• 22:20Speaker 01

  No, I think you can set a separate account.

• 22:23Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so that's how you would protect yourself? Okay, got it.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  I think it's a biometric thing on your phone. And unless they like, obviously if they steal your phone or they get into you, they aren't going to have your biometric.

• 22:32Mel Robbins?

  Why not use your browser?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Well.

• 22:34Mel Robbins?

  Tell me about the danger of this because I'm so lazy. And you're probably gonna kill me because I've literally not only, I feel like I'm about to get cyber attacked because I'm confessing all this stuff right now.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  This is what most people, what most people do.

• 22:47Mel Robbins?

  Well, well, well, I'm even thinking about the fact that every time I buy something, like you want to save your credit? I'm like, yep, because I want to make it easy for people to steal from me. Like I, I, I'm thinking now about how this is all saved.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the only issue with browsers is there's two things. One is it depends on your browser, right? If you have Google and you use Google Chrome and you're saving it on your browser. And if anyone is able to access your Google Chrome on another computer because you reuse your password, they might be able to get your password from that.

• 23:17Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  But most of the time browsers is actually stored locally. So the only time they're really, it could be a real issue is if they actually physically steal your computer, which is not necessarily likely.

• 23:28Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  So the browsers aren't as bad, in my opinion, as like an unlocked note app.

• 23:34Mel Robbins?

  As a cybersecurity expert, you say never use your mom's maiden name for security questions.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:40Mel Robbins?

  Why?

• 23:40Speaker 01

  You'd be so surprised at how much data is out there on us. It is very easy now to find your like parents' full name and parents' address, your kids, your like you can see and if you Google me or if you used to Google me, you'd be able to see like my brother, my sister, my grandparents, where each of them lived, even IP addresses. So it's it's all public knowledge. Again, OSINT is open source intelligence. And a lot of times people are like, oh, I'm going to get hacked. And it's it's not a complicated hacker. It's literally someone that's like doing their research on you and finding out the answers to your security questions. So think about all the security questions, right? Like your high school, that can easily be found out. Like your mother's maiden name also easily found out.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  And it just, the more information that you put out there online, the more information you're giving these people that it's easy for them to hack. And I want to give you a little story.

• 24:30Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  There is a company that I have been like partnering with and they really specialize in OSINT, which is open source intelligence. And they have been able to generate emails and try to find like basically everything about you within 20 seconds using AI. They like scrape all, anything open, which is if you've ever created a wedding registry, all of your social media posts, anything that you've ever said online. And they've been able to piece together who people are in like 30 seconds from that. They even found the name of someone's dog because on their wedding registry, they had a dog bow and it said like for Archie. And it was like their dog's name is Archie. AI is so crazy and it's so easy to be able to pull information now from anything that's

• 25:16Speaker 01

  open. So again, Facebook posts, social media posts, TikTok, blogs, news articles, wedding registries, anything that you've ever like sent to someone that's about you that they can read, that's not like locked down. Can all be scanned in a matter of seconds. And so I don't need to give my mom's maiden name as a security question because it's pretty easily accessible at this point.

• 25:39Mel Robbins?

  What like, do you just pick a different one?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, separate persona.

• 25:43Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Like, again, my persona has like the same, I create a persona and I have like the same four or five security questions. And I have like a whole like monologue in my head about like who this person is.

• 25:54Mel Robbins?

  I need to do this.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  And it's not, it seems a little difficult, but it's actually like, it gets fun. It's like a fun game you can play. Like I can be a completely different person online.

• 26:02Mel Robbins?

  So you, as a cybersecurity expert, you always do the automatic software updates. Why?

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Yes, without a doubt. The way that software updates work is usually the software has a hole in it, like a flaw, a vulnerability.

• 26:16Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  That hackers have been able to find. And the reason why a lot of software updates happen is to patch that hole. Say like, hey, we just found out that someone got in doing this, so we're going to patch that. And so they can't do that anymore.

• 26:28Mel Robbins?

  Really? I thought that they were updates because the software is getting better.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  It could be both, but you can now find out what the software update is about. So I just.

• 26:36Mel Robbins?

  When they say fix bugs, they mean holes that hackers got.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  That's exactly what it is.

• 26:39Mel Robbins?

  I'll be damned.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  And most of them, I was, I don't know, I don't have the statistic, but I honestly think that like 90% of software updates are to fix some type of bug or vulnerability. Because hackers are getting so much better and like you're only as strong as your weakest link. There are always so many holes when you're building softwares. And so it just better to, I mean, what's the harm in having an auto update? Again, another thing, takes two seconds. Every time you download an app, just have it on auto update. Not, not a big deal. Once you have that on, then you're good to go.

• 27:06Mel Robbins?

  I'm the weakest link. That's what I'm realizing.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Everyone, everyone is the weakest link. People are the problem, but they're also the solution.

• 27:14Mel Robbins?

  Okay. And you're, I know we're going to get to the solution. And as you're listening, if you're not panicking as much as I am, don't worry, I'm panicking for both of us because I've made every single mistake. It's true.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  And we're all alive right now, so it's good. And now we learn from it.

• 27:27Mel Robbins?

  That's true. And I consider myself to be somebody who is pretty savvy around tech, but I am not savvy around cybersecurity is what I'm understanding. Here's one that I found fascinating. As a cybersecurity expert, you never plug your phone into a random charger.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Yes. So there's a thing called juice jacking. So if you have like, you know, the USB plugs at the hotel where you can plug it in to charge your phone?

• 27:50Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, of course.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  And every time you say, trust this device, right? Because you're like, I need it to charge my phone.

• 27:55Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  When you trust it, it can do multiple things. It's not just charging. You can like send and receive things from that port. And so a lot of times in cyber warfare and cyber espionage, like spies would literally manipulate that in certain areas to get information out of your phone and plug. So as a spy, they never plug that in. And it's, to be fair, two second fix. You don't have to plug it in the USB. Just plug it into a wall. That can't happen in a wall. But the USB, there's a way to actually like manipulate it where you can download and receive files from and off of phones or even install like bugs onto your phone so they can start seeing. Is it likely going to happen to people? No, but as a cyber professional, I don't, it's not that hard for me to plug it into a wall versus plug it into a USB.

• 28:38Mel Robbins?

  You also refuse to think, oh hackers aren't interested in me.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  That is like, everyone's going to be biggest downfall because it doesn't matter who you are, they just want money. Like, if you are an easy target, you're an easy target. And everyone is going to be an easy target because we were never taught how to protect ourselves. So we're reusing the same passwords and they're going to be very easy passwords. And it's not that hard for hackers to like, find one account and then get into another. It's, it's very easy. And so again, if you're an easy target, they're going to go after you because they want money.

• 29:09Mel Robbins?

  My jaw is already on the floor and I certainly didn't know a lot of what you've already shared, Caitlin. And there's so much more that we're going to get into. And as you're listening and watching this, I'm guessing you probably didn't know a lot of this either. Do me a favor. Do not keep this information to yourself. Please, share this episode with the people you love, who you also want to protect. I'm talking your partner, your parents, your kids, your coworkers. This conversation might be just the thing that protects them from making a mistake they can't undo. And don't go anywhere. After a short break and a few words from our amazing sponsors, Caitlin has so much more to teach you about how to protect yourself online. And I promise you, you do not want to miss

• 29:52Mel Robbins?

  the number one scam on Venmo. Because you and I will fall for this if you don't know about it. So stay with me.

• 30:09Mel Robbins?

  Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. You and I are learning how to protect yourself online, how to stay safe from award-winning cybersecurity expert Caitlin Sarian. So Caitlin, what's the number one way that people are getting hacked right now?

• 30:24Speaker 01

  There's two ways, right? There's reusing passwords, so they're getting into their accounts that way. Because what people don't realize is they have a strong base password, I like to call it. So for example, let's just say your base password is "let them."

• 30:37Mel Robbins?

  It's not, by the way. So anyone trying to take, I'm not that dumb.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  So you say it's "let them," or "let them theory." And then your next password, you're like, "Oh, I have to update this password again." "Let them one." "Let them one, two, three." "Let them one!" exclamation point. A lot of people use that same base password, and they've had that same base password for God knows how many years. And what hackers can do is in seconds, they can run an algorithm that runs 10,000 variations of that base password that was leaked and in the public.

• 31:07Mel Robbins?

  Oh my God.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  And get into your accounts. And then once they're in your accounts, they'll use it to scam other people, or use it to scam you. And so there's a lot of issues with reused passwords. The main other issue that I see is like actual scams, like call scams or phishing scams on emails. So we're going to go through a lot of them. But one of the call scams that I've heard a lot is the FBI or like some police agency calling. And again, it's not them, but it's really, really obvious. They know a lot of information about you because again, your information is out there for the public. You can buy your information for pennies. Like you can probably buy a social security number for like $2. So it's not that difficult to find. And people get calls and they're mortified. And the way that these calls work,

• 31:53Speaker 01

  scammers literally know exactly like the psychology behind getting you to react.

• 31:58Mel Robbins?

  What is a scam?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  They call and they say, "Oh my gosh, you missed either like a court hearing, or you got a ticket in United Arab Pay, or you missed jury duty."

• 32:06Mel Robbins?

  Oh.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  "You have to pay us, or we're going to come and arrest you."

• 32:09Mel Robbins?

  What?

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a whole thing. And they know exactly where you live. They're like, "We know that your parents have..." Address is here, you're you're here, you've lived at this address for how many years? Like, they go through the whole thing and people are mortified, they're gonna get arrested and they're like, "We need you to go send crypto." First of all, if anyone needs you to send crypto, let's just be red flag. But again, you're in this situation.

• 32:30Mel Robbins?

  No, if somebody's asking you to send or wire crypto, it's a scam.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  It's a scam. But like you're, when you're in this situation, you, it really feels real, like they're calling your personal phone. They know exactly who you are, they know who you're like married to, they know, they know everything. And so, these scammers are so, so good at just getting you to react. And so, a lot of it is like phone calls or even like just regular phishing scams that we've seen, but they've gotten so much more enhanced.

• 32:58Mel Robbins?

  Wow. How do you know if you've been hacked?

• 33:01Speaker 01

  So this is, I mean, it just depends on like what, like if you're talking about your phone or your computer.

• 33:06Mel Robbins?

  Let's go through each one. How do you know if your phone's been hacked? How do you know if your bank account's been hacked? How do you know, like, how do you know if your Amazon account's been hacked?

• 33:12Speaker 01

  So, a lot of times with pretty much any account, you can see who's logged in. Like, if you go on WhatsApp, you can see like the last session that it was on.

• 33:19Mel Robbins?

  Oh, really?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  And where it's, yeah, even on your phone right now, if you pull out your phone, you can see who's logged into your iPhone and where, where they're located.

• 33:27Mel Robbins?

  Okay, I gotta go do that.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  It's not, yeah, it's not that hard to do, but I always kind of look every couple like months, I'm like, "Who has been logged in on my account?" Or like on my WhatsApp, or on my iPhone, or on my Gmail, you can see, like you can go to your Gmail account history, you can go to like my activity, and you can see all of the logged in sessions and where they're located. And you can do that with Instagram, and you can do that with social media. For me, that's the easiest way to tell if someone's in there, because there's like a history of who is there and where they're logged in from.

• 33:57Mel Robbins?

  And what about like banking? Like, I've heard like if you get a weird like hit on your account for like a dollar or $2, that's somebody now penetrating a charge before they're gonna hit you big.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  It's harder to do banking because there's so many banking frauds out there. Like, I don't want to tell you to do one thing when like, you know, they do another thing. So, for example, I don't want to say, "Hey, you're never gonna get a text from the bank," because a lot of people get text messages. So, if you're getting a weird message that you didn't anticipate, every single time I've ever gotten that, which hasn't happened a lot, it's happened once, I immediately call my bank. I like go to my bank card, look at the back on the phone number. And get the phone number from my bank. And I call them immediately and say, hey, I don't know what's going on. I just want to make sure. Because even the fake text messages, right?

• 34:44Mel Robbins?

  Right, that you then click through into something. Look real.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  They look real. So anytime, first of all, this is a separate thing. I never answer phone calls from people I don't know. And I, my voicemail has, does not have my name. It does not have a greeting. Because if people are calling me, they know it's me. Hackers use that same thing and they say, one, okay, we're confirming that that's her number now. And two, they're getting your voice to potentially use for voice scams. Or getting your voice to potentially use to authenticate you into banks. So they can record your greeting saying yes or no, right? A lot of times if you answer the phone and you're like, they say, hey, is this Caitlin? And I say, yes. That yes can be used to authenticate into a banking phone. So these sound scary again, but if you don't answer the phone for people that you don't know, and if you don't like have a voicemail, you're avoiding it.

• 35:32Mel Robbins?

  It's so true. You know, there's so many of us, I'll speak for myself, and I'm sure as you're listening or you're watching this on YouTube right now, that you're doing nothing to protect yourself online. Like you think you are.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:45Mel Robbins?

  But as I'm listening to this, I'm just thinking of the huge digital footprint of all the information and the fact that they can then probably spider it to my son's information and my daughter's information and my husband's information and my parents' information. And just like one giant family tree, it's now one digital footprint. You know, what do you say to someone like me and the person who's listening right now, who feels so overwhelmed by the idea of needing to protect themselves online?

• 36:20Speaker 01

  I would just say like, again, if you start implementing these simple routines, you'll feel so much more empowered in the future. Like, it seems very difficult, but like I said, okay. So don't answer the phone and don't have a voicemail. That solves your problem right there. Done. Check that out. Do that for the one thing for the week and then you're moved. Next week you can do something else. It's just simple little things that you now know that you're empowered with, like that information to go out and do it for yourself. Or if you want to keep your voicemail, that's totally fine. Is it likely that like a hacker is really gonna use your name? I don't know, but I'm just trying to tell you what it is and tell you how you can protect yourself.

• 36:57Mel Robbins?

  I hear a lot about voice cloning scams. And as a family, we have a password, which I am not going to say what it is, for the inevitable moment when there is a voice cloning scam that happens so that you can say, what's the password?

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:18Mel Robbins?

  If you feel like something's weird and we have this weird, random word.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:23Mel Robbins?

  That's how you know if it's family member who's talking or not.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  So we call it a safe word because you can call a password too.

• 37:29Mel Robbins?

  A safe word. I like safe word better.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  So we call it a safe word. So what happens is these scammers are getting so elaborate and they're literally using our voice from public podcast episodes, TV shows, whatever.

• 37:39Mel Robbins?

  Or your social media account.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, social media. It's not that hard to stitch together a few words and try to scam your loved ones and they pretend to be you and say, oh, my gosh, I'm stranded on the side of a road. Can you please Venmo me a certain amount of money? I just need it to like, I left my wallet. Can you just send it to me? And the only way they can tell, like your family member can tell it's you is if you use that safe word, right? So let's just say your safe word is green bananas. If my mom gets on a phone with someone that says that they're me, she's gonna be like, okay, if this is really Caitlin, can you please tell me your family's safe word? And if I say green banana, she knows it's like this is a big threat.

• 38:15Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  And so I would rather, it's again, two seconds. The only way you can really tell with these is to have a family safe word or it doesn't have to just be family, but like a loved one's safe word.

• 38:24Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:27Mel Robbins?

  I know so many people are falling for Venmo scams.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:30Mel Robbins?

  And can you explain what they are? Why these are so dangerous and how you can protect yourself?

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Yes. So what happens is that scammers literally send you money.

• 38:41Mel Robbins?

  Send you money?

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, send you money on Venmo, but they're from stolen cards. So they send you money and they say, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. I sent it to the wrong person. Can you please send the money back? And you're like, okay, well,

• 38:56Mel Robbins?

  Well, I mean, that sounds reasonable.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 38:58Mel Robbins?

  So all of a sudden, you get a Venmo transfer from somebody.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Two hundred dollars.

• 39:02Mel Robbins?

  Oh, wow. Okay. And they're like, whoa, who's this? I don't know this person. Then all of a sudden, you get a message like, oh, my God. I sent it to the wrong person. Can you please, please, please send it back? Oh, my God.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:10Mel Robbins?

  This is a scam?

• 39:11Speaker 01

  This is a scam, and it's working.

• 39:13Mel Robbins?

  And so what happens?

• 39:14Speaker 01

  So then people send it back because they feel bad. And then what happens is because it's a stolen card, those charges get reversed. But you don't get reversed because you willingly sent them the money. So you're stuck paying these scammers, the $200, because the stolen credit card gets reversed. So you actually didn't get the money.

• 39:34Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:35Mel Robbins?

  So they're advancing you money from a card that's about to get re- that's about to get declined?

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:41Mel Robbins?

  And now you're out the 200. That's incredible.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:44Mel Robbins?

  Wow. I'm sorry. I'm just sitting here like, holy cow.

• 39:50Mel Robbins?

  Is Zelle more secure than Venmo, since it's embedded in a lot of banks?

• 39:55Speaker 01

  I try to avoid Venmo and Zelle at all costs unless I have to. And then I always try to use a credit card wherever possible. Credit card over debit card, because debit cards, it's the same as like Venmo, right? It's like money in, money out. Credit card, they can actually, they're better about reversing charges.

• 40:11Mel Robbins?

  Okay. Now I have a question.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:13Mel Robbins?

  So you know how you hear on the news all the time, oh, there was a huge cyber breach at this store, that store, the other store, this one? And all this customer data? I hear that, I think, oh, I shop there, and then I do nothing.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:25Mel Robbins?

  What should I do if I hear that there's been a big data breach, credit card information at a massive retailer? It seems to be happening every other day now.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:35Mel Robbins?

  What do you do as a customer?

• 40:37Speaker 01

  The first thing I would do is update your password immediately. And if it's a really key account, I would turn on multi-factor authentication, which means that you are signing in not just with a password, but like a code that's sent to your phone, or your email, or your authenticator app. I prefer authenticator app, but we'll get back to that.

• 40:52Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Then if it's like an experianer type of like, you know, any type of financial. Bank situation, they're gonna be sending you something in the mail to teach you what to do. And they also offer free credit monitoring for you. Sign up for that. It's free. Why not? The, the main thing I tell people, freeze your credit. Because the issue with those like breaches is identity theft. That's what most people are concerned about is, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have identity theft if my social security number and my name and all my information's out there. But they can't commit identity theft if they can't open any accounts in your name. And they won't be able to open accounts in your name if you freeze your credit.

• 41:28Mel Robbins?

  So hold on a second.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:30Mel Robbins?

  So if you don't need to take out a loan and if you don't need to

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Open a credit card.

• 41:35Mel Robbins?

  Open a new credit card, then you don't need open credit. You can freeze it?

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's very easy. It takes like

• 41:41Mel Robbins?

  And the credit card companies don't ding you if you do that?

• 41:44Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 41:45Mel Robbins?

  Really?

• 41:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:47Mel Robbins?

  Oh, I didn't know that was a thing.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  There's three credit bureaus. It takes maybe five to 10 minutes for each bureau. Call them or email them. You can freeze your credit and then you just open it when you need it. And I tell people to do that with their grandparents or parents all the time.

• 42:00Mel Robbins?

  Great idea.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  That you'll never know if someone is, you know, using your parents' information to, to create accounts until it's too late.

• 42:08Mel Robbins?

  Let's talk about seniors because there's so many listeners that have elderly parents or concerned about their grandparents. And we recently had a very scary issue with scamming related to my mother-in-law and they almost got in.

• 42:25Mel Robbins?

  Almost.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:26Mel Robbins?

  And she would have been all of it gone. All of her savings gone. All of her retirement gone. Everything.

• 42:33Mel Robbins?

  How can the person listening help protect their parents from online scams?

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I would first start with freezing their credit. And I would also start, again, a similar communicating, right? Like there are these scams out there. Like I go to my grandma and I say, grandma, these are the most recent scams, right? Like someone's calling and pretending they're the police. They're gonna try to call you. Someone's calling and pretending to be XYZ. If they ever ask you to send money, immediately hang up. And even if they think, if you think, oh, this could be true. I want you to hang up and call this fraud helpline number. So there's actually a fraud helpline number that can walk you through. You could technically have two phones if you want to. And you can be on the phone with the fraud helpline number and they can walk you through what you need to do.

• 43:18Mel Robbins?

  But I think we should go to their house and sit on their laptop and their computer and do the settings that you've talked about.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, multi-factor authentication, make sure their passwords are updated, like specifically banks, you know, 401K, all their like retirement savings, all that. Like make sure that is a very strong and unique password. And then turn on multi-factor authentication. And if you're a caretaker for, maybe have it go to your phone. Don't have it go to her phone. Cause if you're getting a authentication code, you can call your mom and say, why are you trying to get into your bank?

• 43:50Mel Robbins?

  Uh huh. Great. I know that there's a person listening or watching right now who is thinking, I gotta protect my kids. So what are the non-negotiable settings? Every single parent, every grandparent, everyone who, if you're listening right now and you have friends who have kids, send this episode to them. What are the non-negotiables that every parent needs to check on their phone and their child's phone tonight?

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Yes, so for your child's phone, I would make sure that you're on the child, a child account. Like Instagram, YouTube, they all have children's accounts, right? So if you're under a certain-

• 44:29Mel Robbins?

  I don't know, they do?

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:29Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  If you're under a certain age, you can turn on that child's account. You can also block messages. I would immediately block messages.

• 44:35Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so block messages?

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you're on a child's account, it doesn't, I don't think you can get messages from most of the accounts.

• 44:41Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  But to me, the thing is open communication and it sounds really, really lame. But if your child knows like, hey, there are a lot of scammers out there and like, don't worry. But if something feels off, just come to me and talk to me because this happens to so many people. Like they're not going to come to you if you make this seem dark and scary and that they think they did something bad. But they will come to you if you have an open line of communication saying, I'm like, want to protect you, I want you to have fun online, but I also want you to know that these things are happening.

• 45:07Mel Robbins?

  So when you are the parent and you're checking the phone and you're looking at the apps, what are we turning off on the apps?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, make sure their apps are locked down on private mode. Like no kid should have an open Instagram account. You should only be adding your friends. And friends that you have actually physically met in person. And that you go to school with, or you met at a party, or whatever it is. Um, then I would make sure that you can't message. Um, there's a lot of issues with like Roblox and like kids gaming too, that like people are messaging that are like adults that are like grooming children. And so I would just make sure that you you can't message. You turn on private uh private mode and you turn on kid settings. I personally wouldn't allow kids to have like Snapchat. Because they think that message disappears. Nothing disappears on the internet. Nothing goes away, even if it disappears, it doesn't go away and people can screenshot it.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  Don't ever send anything that you wouldn't want like me as your parent to see, or your grandparents, or whoever else. I had a friend who is really into cyber, obviously. And her nephew was like going to the Olympics, like world-class athlete in high school, like went to the Junior Olympics. Met someone online that, you know, a cute girl that added him on social media. She said that she went to a town across, she like had mutual friends because she had added his other friends, so he she thought it was mutual. And they just started talking, they never had a call with each other, but they were talking for like three or four months. And she sent him a photo of herself.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  And he then shared a photo because they thought she he really thought he was was with her. And it's extortion scams are on the rise. And and it's really, really rampant in in teenage boys or younger. And they specifically target boys because they know that they're a little bit more willy-nilly when it comes to private photos. But there's two reasons why they do that, right? The first is they want money, so they were basically extorting him for money, saying, I'm gonna leak all these photos of you and you're never gonna have a career and or be an Olympian. Because I have all these private photos of you. And I want money. Or they say, continue to give me more photos because those photos will then be used for another scam.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  After a little bit of time, he shared it with his aunt who is in cyber and was able to fix it. But there is a really good resource out there.

• 47:29Mel Robbins?

  What did she do? Call the police?

• 47:31Speaker 01

  She knew a lot of people in the FBI. But there is an FBI research that is free for everyone. So it's called the Internet Crimes Complaint Center. So ic3.gov. I C three, the number three, dot gov. And it is help, like, it can help anyone for any internet crime.

• 47:50Mel Robbins?

  I just love how clear and practical you are, Caitlin. And I'm willing to admit publicly that I'm making a lot of mistakes here, but I'm also starting to feel very empowered that I can fix this. And I have so many more questions about how you can protect yourself online. But let's take a short break so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. And I also want to give you a chance to share this extraordinary information from Caitlin with the people that you care about. We haven't even covered the five things that she wants you to do as soon as you're done listening or watching this episode. That's coming up a little bit later. We have so many more things to learn from her and to dig into. So don't go anywhere.

• 48:30Mel Robbins?

  We'll be right back. Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. First of all, thank you for being here and listening to this and sharing this with the people that you care about. I hope that you're feeling what I'm feeling, which is a little bit like, oh, my gosh, I got work to do. I'm taking notes. There's things I'm going to do as soon as we're done with this conversation to protect myself. I hope you're going to do it, too. Thank you for sharing this information with the people that you care about. And let's jump right back in because I've got so many more questions, Caitlin. What is the first thing you should do the moment your phone is lost or stolen?

• 49:16Speaker 01

  So I would actually preface that you should do this before you lose your phone.

• 49:20Mel Robbins?

  Okay, what am I doing?

• 49:21Speaker 01

  So I would turn off the ability to turn on airplane mode when you swipe down.

• 49:25Mel Robbins?

  Wait, what?

• 49:26Speaker 01

  So you know how you can turn on airplane mode and there's like, you can easily do it if you like swipe down.

• 49:30Mel Robbins?

  Oh yeah, you swipe down, you hit airplane, okay.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Because the first thing that like robbers do is they immediately put on airplane mode so you can't track the phone. But if they can't do that because your phone's locked, then the only way they can do anything is to just turn it off. And they're gonna have to eventually turn it back on. So I don't have the airplane mode so easily available on my phone.

• 49:50Mel Robbins?

  Where do you go to do that?

• 49:51Speaker 01

  You can, if you like scroll down to the control center, you hold it down and it like starts moving similar to like when you move apps.

• 49:57Mel Robbins?

  Oh yeah.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  You can do the same thing on your control.

• 49:59Mel Robbins?

  You can?

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:01Mel Robbins?

  And then you just delete it?

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:03Mel Robbins?

  And that way you have to go and manually do it?

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Then you just go to settings, like next time you're on a plane, you just go to settings, airplane mode and turn it on.

• 50:09Mel Robbins?

  I can do this.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:10Mel Robbins?

  And I'm going to do this. I personally feel that this is an issue whether somebody has lost their phone, whether somebody has had their phone stolen, whether like they left it somewhere and just feeling like you've got all of this information on your phone.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:25Mel Robbins?

  You probably have 12345 as your unlock screen.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  I hope they don't, but most likely. You know, that's still like one of the most popular passwords outside of password is 12345.

• 50:36Mel Robbins?

  Password?

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Password is the number one most popular password that is still used to this day.

• 50:41Mel Robbins?

  Password?

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, password. I wish I was joking, but I'm not.

• 50:47Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  So it makes you feel a little better, right?

• 50:50Mel Robbins?

  Slightly. What do you, as a cybersecurity expert, what do you think about wearable technology?

• 50:59Speaker 01

  So this is definitely like.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Everything is a risk, right, online? Everything that you do is a risk and you have to choose whether you want that risk or not. And I'm going to give you a little bit of an example of how AI is working out right now with all of the data. So we have a ton of data on everyone, right? And by we, I mean like the government, any of the apps that you use. Like I used to use a wearable ring that was tracking, you know, my fertility, my sleep patterns, my stress levels. But can you imagine plugging all that into an AI and how much that would actually know about me? I personally don't feel comfortable giving that information to other people. However, my boyfriend swears by his ring and he doesn't care. So again, this is a risk-based approach.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Every company has a privacy policy legally and that privacy policy states what data they're collecting from you, who they're sharing it with, what they're using it for and why they're collecting it. So what I usually do is I take that privacy policy, I actually throw it into ChatGPT or Gemini or Perplexity or whatever. And I say, hey, can you please tell me like the high level issues that like might come about? Like what are they collecting? Cause it's a very legal policy, so it's hard to read. It's like made by lawyers and it's meant honestly to confuse you. It is meant to confuse you. They don't want you to know all the stuff that they're doing with your data. So I just throw it in and then I'm like, okay, they're only collecting this, this and this. I feel more comfortable. But with wearables, they're really collecting a lot about you as a human being.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  And sometimes I just don't want that.

• 52:33Mel Robbins?

  So if I take a privacy statement,

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:36Mel Robbins?

  which I think I'm probably like 99.9% of people. It's like, except all, okay, move on. I didn't mean to do the thing I was here for.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:42Mel Robbins?

  And I were to throw it into Microsoft Copilot.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:46Mel Robbins?

  And that's the platform I trust. And it gives me a summary of what this is, what I'm giving permission for this company to do. What are the things I'm looking for? Because I would imagine there's, there's language as a former lawyer.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  I know.

• 53:03Mel Robbins?

  There's language, it's like blah, blah, blah, third party, blah, blah, blah. And then it's just sort of buried in there. What are you looking for that is a red flag as a cybersecurity expert?

• 53:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'm looking at the types of data. That they're collecting. So if they're taking like biometric data or they're taking like really specific, if it's just like a name and an email, go for it, you know? But if they're taking

• 53:25Mel Robbins?

  Well, because it's fake, the one that you gave them, because you're no dummy like I am. Okay, you're like, you can have my alias, go for it.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Exactly. But if they're taking like, you know, my like menstruation data and my sleep data or like for biometrics or anything like that, I'm like, okay, why are you taking it? And so I ask, what data are you collecting? Why are you taking it? And who are you sharing it with? That is a big thing. So I'm very concerned with who they're sharing it with. Why do they need to share it with these people? I don't know. Maybe it's for like, you know, metrics, statistics. I have no idea, but some of the like recent like wearables have been sharing with companies that I don't want to be shared with. So if it's really sensitive data, like your health history, nationalities,

• 54:13Speaker 01

  I would just prefer not to have it. And then if they're sharing it with interesting companies, like why are they sharing it with XYZ?

• 54:22Mel Robbins?

  Well, I'm sitting here thinking about the fact that just about everything that I use is now somehow connected to the internet.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:31Mel Robbins?

  Whether it is the pad that I'm sleeping on

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 54:34Mel Robbins?

  and cooling me down at night, whether it's the alarm clock sunrise that I'm waking up to.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  I do love that, though.

• 54:42Mel Robbins?

  But, but what I'm wondering is for some of these things, is there an option you can look for that allows you to enjoy the benefit of some of this wearable stuff, but that limits what they're, what you're sharing back to their general data pool? Do you see what I'm saying?

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So a lot of times there are options to like, look and see like, I'm turning this on or this on, like there are options of saying, hey, don't share my sleep data. Usually those options come at the very beginning. And so A lot of people just blindly accept and say yes, because we're excited. We want to use a product. We want to use a platform, whatever it is. We want to use the app. And we're like, yes, yes, yes. But I would go back. Usually they have privacy settings or settings in general, like data privacy settings.

• 55:26Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  And I would start seeing what they do. And there's some toggles, like on LinkedIn, they're starting to use everything that you've posted for their generative AI. So like they're training their AI platform based off the stuff that you post.

• 55:39Mel Robbins?

  Well, that's sort of like what happened with Instagram. Instagram did that update where all of a sudden every buddy's locations were live. And there was a flurry of texting all day long. If you don't know about this, please check your Instagram right now, where it just suddenly opted us all in.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  And it was crazy because it was every time you opened up Instagram, it was resharing exactly where you were to the precise location, if you had precise location turned on on Instagram, which I would say probably 90% of the people do.

• 56:07Mel Robbins?

  90% of people have precise locations turned on?

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Well, it's automatic. When you download Instagram, it's automatically on.

• 56:14Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Unless you go into the settings, which I made a few videos like to say like, hey, only like limit, limit access or don't allow it all.

• 56:21Mel Robbins?

  So is one of the things that we should do is to take a day and go through every app that we've downloaded and all the settings and look at the privacy and the data settings on those things?

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Yes, those, there's three things that you want to look at. Does it have access to your camera? Does it have access to your microphone? And does it have access to your location? All three of those things, if it doesn't need it, turn it off.

• 56:46Mel Robbins?

  Why would it need it?

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Well, you'd be surprised.

• 56:50Mel Robbins?

  If you're using it, yes. But if not, no. So what should the setting be? Only while using the app, never once?

• 56:57Speaker 01

  It just depends on what your preference is, right? So for example, I ordered Uber Eats last night and they delivered the wrong thing. And my manager got my phone and was like, don't worry, I'm going to return it for you. And she went and you have to take a picture of the wrong thing, right? And she's like, oh, you don't have, you didn't give it access. Because I don't need Uber Eats to have access to my camera roll or my pictures or my camera, right? Or my microphone. So she allowed, she limited access to the one photo that she took. And she put that photo on and she took a picture and we went off. But for me, I'm like, I don't think Uber Eats needs to have access to anything, ever. And if I need to add a picture randomly, you can allow access to one photo.

• 57:31Mel Robbins?

  So are you saying that if you have an app on your phone?

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:36Mel Robbins?

  And? Like I have where I've given Instagram or whatever access to like my photo library? That it can be in the background scanning my photos?

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Oh, it's not can be, it is. Instagram, Facebook and TikTok have new features in the last like two months. Where they are scanning the camera roll that you have not posted. To give you ideas on how to generate fun reel or post ideas. Because they're trying to get you on the platform to post more, right? So they're literally, if you gave them access to your whole camera roll, they're scanning it and they're putting together. Their own version of a potential reel that you might want to post after your trip to Boston.

• 58:21Mel Robbins?

  Whoa.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:22Mel Robbins?

  So we prevent that by saying.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Limit access.

• 58:25Mel Robbins?

  Limit access.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so like for social media, I limit access. I don't say never because obviously I have to post and I have to put. Photos on and I have to go through the app, but I limit access to the photo that I'm actually uploading onto the app.

• 58:37Mel Robbins?

  What about facial recognition software as a cybersecurity expert? What do we need to know about facial recognition software?

• 58:46Speaker 01

  Yes, so unfortunately, a lot of facial recognition software is unavoidable nowadays. Like you're walking through the airport and they're scanning your face. I mean, you have to go through TSA free.

• 58:56Mel Robbins?

  They are. Okay, you're right. Like where are they scanning? Well, actually, I wonder because like, you know, I'm looking up. I don't have them in here, but I'm looking up. And there's security cameras everywhere.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:08Mel Robbins?

  You go.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  So there is biometric tracking and facial scanning pretty much everywhere. And I have a concern, one, because biometric is like very unique to you, right? Like your eyes are, it's like a fingerprint, your eyes and fingerprint, your face shape is very, very unique to you. And you can't fix it, right? I mean, you might be able to fix face shape with certain things, but you can't change your eyes that much. Definitely can't change your fingerprint. And so my concern is TSA has our biometric ID, right? Global Entry has our biometric ID.

• 59:37Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Anything is hackable. In my head, anything is hackable. So what happens when people start getting that information? And then the other thing is our phones from a marketing perspective are going to start tracking our eye placements. So my concern is you know how smart AI is, right? Like if you've been using AI, if anyone here has used AI. If you type in like, hey, what do you know about me? It gives like a whole summary of exactly who you are to a T. Now, I want you to imagine like someone on the other side of the screen when you're like doom scrolling and late at night and you're watching what you preferably like to watch. It's analyzing every single thing about you. It's analyzing where you're looking, who you're looking at, how long you're staying on this video.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  It's analyzing the psychology behind what you're watching and understanding who you are as an individual. Hopefully, it's gonna start doing better ads. That's what they're saying, right? But who knows what that information can be used for? And so I recently, you know, it sounds a little scary. I recently partnered with a company that has, it kind of shields you from biometric and surveillance. And it, it's UVA and UVB and blue light blocking. But it really-

• 1:00:50Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so wait, these are blue blocker, red like, well, these kind of have like a pink thing.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're like also like, it's, it's an infrared screen. So the way that surveillance works is usually through infrared technology. So because there's like an infrared kind of shielding-

• 1:01:08Mel Robbins?

  You even had these made for my prescription. This is pretty cool. Okay.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Because there's like a kind of shielding on it. When you walk through like the airport or sometimes like when I wear mine, my phone doesn't even register that it's me. Like it can't even see because it can't really tell where my eyes are. So it's not like, you know, the end all be all, but it does make me feel a little bit better when I'm like walking through security. You're gonna have to take that off through airport security, but when you're walking just in general.

• 1:01:34Mel Robbins?

  Because it wouldn't be able to scan my eyeballs?

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:39Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  It prevents it a little bit from scanning your eyeballs.

• 1:01:41Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Mel Robbins?

  That's really cool.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Mel Robbins?

  So the question that I have about biometric scanning though, is that if we're using it for Global Entry or you're using it for Clear or you're using it for one purchase with, you want to purchase with your fingerprint? Do you want to log into your Gmail with your finger? Is that a good thing to use or would you not recommend we use that?

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  So again, risk-based approach, right? For me, I have TSA PreCheck because I travel every week. And if I only traveled twice a year, I would opt out of my biometric tracking because it's not that hard for me to wait an extra five minutes for them to like check who I am, right?

• 1:02:17Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  But unfortunately, I travel four or five times a week and that is just not likely. So my risk, yeah, I do not want it, but is it worth me to spend all that extra time to try to fight it? I don't think so. But some people don't, like my sister, my manager, they opt out every time. Everything is a risk-based approach on surveillance and I just, again, I do my best wherever I think I can help. I try to fix things and then if not, I've let it go.

• 1:02:45Mel Robbins?

  Amazing. You have some shocking news about cameras. Cameras on your laptop, doorbell cameras, baby cameras.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:54Mel Robbins?

  Uh oh.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  So, this is not to scare you, it's to empower you. So, there are two ways that people get into these cameras, right? One is, again, if you're reusing passwords, which everyone does, so don't be embarrassed by it, but take this as a sign to be like, okay, maybe I shouldn't have the same password for my baby monitor as my Facebook account. Because if you're reusing passwords, they just have to get in and they just mess with you and they can like talk through the camera, they can watch through camera.

• 1:03:21Mel Robbins?

  Oh my god.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, they can watch. There's also a site, there's multiple sites actually, that show every single camera that's on an open network.

• 1:03:30Mel Robbins?

  Wait, what does that mean?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  They can literally log into cameras that are like on open, unsecure Wi-Fi's.

• 1:03:36Mel Robbins?

  So?

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  So if you have a camera and you're on an open Wi-Fi and they like somehow decide to connect to the one, like the IP address that you're sitting on, they will be able to turn on your camera.

• 1:03:48Mel Robbins?

  Whoa.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:49Mel Robbins?

  Just trying to like-

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  Process.

• 1:03:51Mel Robbins?

  Processes, because you're saying that somebody can hack into my laptop if I'm on an open network and they can-

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Turn on your-

• 1:04:01Mel Robbins?

  Turn on my camera on my laptop and be watching me.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  I had an old boss that literally had, he didn't have a camera cover on his camera, this was like five years ago, and someone had taken pictures, like he changed in front of his computer, and someone had taken pictures of him and like sent him an email being like, we know, like we have some really vulgar pictures of you that we're gonna release. And he was like, pretty high up in the company that I was working for, and he didn't care, he was like, whatever, release them. But, like, people can turn it on and off your camera if they want to. I just would be, I just put on a camera cover.

• 1:04:37Mel Robbins?

  What is a camera cover?

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  There's like little covers that you can buy literally three dollars on Amazon, and you just like cover it when you're not using it. That prevents it. Obviously, they won't be able to see anything. And also just be mindful of where you're connecting. He traveled a lot for work too, so he-

• 1:04:51Mel Robbins?

  And so this can, this can happen to your doorbell, it can happen to your baby monitor, it can happen to any camera you have.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was someone that follows me that someone hacked into their baby monitor, but it was because they reused an old password that was leaked. They heard voices in the baby monitor of some random guy talking to the baby.

• 1:05:12Mel Robbins?

  That's terrifying.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was awful. But again, passwords.

• 1:05:17Mel Robbins?

  Passwords, okay, passwords, everybody. I have a stack of emails-

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:23Mel Robbins?

  Right here, from listeners of the Mel Robbins podcast. These emails have come in from around the world. And they cover all kinds of scams that people have fallen for. One scam is that people buy a copy of the Let Them Theory that is counterfeit. It looks nothing like the cover, or it's being sold on Etsy, or even Shen, the fast fashion site, or it's spiral bound, or it's paperback, and there's not a paperback version available in the United States. Like, it's just not written by me, misspelled, but they're falling for it.

• 1:06:03Mel Robbins?

  Lots of emails from people who sadly are getting emails from scammers posing as employees of my company. And basically, they're getting more and more sophisticated. The old scam used to be, hey, if you pay $10,000, we can, you know, we'd love to book you. We never pay anybody. We also don't require somebody to pay to be on this show. And now they've updated the scam to say, hey, we never ask anybody to pay, so they're knowing that we're, they know that we put language up on our website about scams, and they're posing as employees. Can you talk to me about the rise of these kinds of things that are happening?

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So funny story, when we first got ahold of your booker, your booker found us-

• 1:06:53Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  My manager called me and I was like, this is probably a scam. I would love it if it's not a scam, but like, you need to get on the phone with this person, like, and see their face and make sure this is like legitimate, because I don't trust an email. So, the first thing is- If it's not from a verified source like your Instagram, right? Like if you are not messaging them directly from your verified Instagram, it's not you.

• 1:07:17Mel Robbins?

  Well, one of the things that I've also noticed in a lot of scam emails that I get is that people will ask me to click through to schedule a conversation with somebody. And I never, ever, ever do that.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:29Mel Robbins?

  And a lot of these, in terms of the scams that people are receiving, as, you know, because they're very convincing. I'm like, wait a minute, that's the name of a person who actually worked here.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:39Mel Robbins?

  Wait a minute. They're saying that we don't pay people to come on this show and you don't have, there's never a fee for you to be on this show. Like what? How are, they've changed this already?

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  They're saying everything right.

• 1:07:50Mel Robbins?

  But now they're saying, and they're linking to all the, the prior experts. So it looks like really legit. And then they're like, but Mel will give you a private strategy session. We'll build you custom stuff. Well, like, we don't do any of this stuff. Click here to schedule a call.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:08:05Mel Robbins?

  So. So you're basically saying, no, no, no, no. Pick up the phone and call.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:11Mel Robbins?

  Got it.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't click. My manager knows, do not click on any links.

• 1:08:15Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  That is like a blanket statement rule I have. If I need to get ahold of anything, like again, if I need to click on a link for a bank, I call them and I only am clicking on it when I'm on the phone with the bank.

• 1:08:26Mel Robbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  If you have to click on something, call the person and just say, hey, like, what is this about? Or hover over the link and see where it's going. Cause it will show you the URL.

• 1:08:38Mel Robbins?

  Oh.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So unless it's coming like melrobbins.com slash, you know, in-person interview, I'm not going to trust wherever it's sending me.

• 1:08:47Mel Robbins?

  Um, you mentioned that there are five things that you want us to really focus on. Five things that if we just focus on these five things, even though you may feel overwhelmed right now, these are the five things that really. We'll protect you online. What are those five things?

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Passwords. We've talked about that a lot. Tonight, go and write down, these are the accounts that I don't want anyone getting access to. These are my key accounts. And you'll start thinking about more and more as you move on throughout your day. What apps do you not want people to have access to? What banks, social media, all of that. So identify your key accounts and make sure that you have strong and unique passwords for all of them. No reusing of the same passwords, no reusing of the same base password. Have strong passwords.

• 1:09:34Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  So for those of you guys that aren't like myself or Mel, because you're traveling all the time probably too, I would, if you're at home using a desktop for like my parents, right? I'm like, please, Mom, I'm gonna get you a book. We'll, we'll put it in the lock cabinet right next to your computer. You just pull it out when you're on your computer and you can use it. That way you can actually remember and write down your strong passwords. For the people that are always on the go, yeah, like have a unique passphrase or whatever you think you need to remember that like longer password. When it says, oh, remember this, usually it's on a phone and that's just remember it's a password manager on the iPhone.

• 1:10:08Mel Robbins?

  Hmm, okay.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  So you can do that. That's still a password manager. I use a password manager myself. I love it. I swear by it. Or on your notes and just lock it.

• 1:10:16Mel Robbins?

  So that's number one. So once we got the password set, what's the second thing we're doing?

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  Software updates automatically. Right when you download the app, just turn it on.

• 1:10:24Mel Robbins?

  Okay, because software updates, as a cybersecurity expert, you're saying, when it says, oh, fix bugs, make more optimized, they're actually solving and fixing where the hackers broke in.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:10:37Mel Robbins?

  So automatic software updates on all apps. I got that. What's the third thing I'm doing?

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  The third thing you are gonna do is freeze your credit.

• 1:10:44Mel Robbins?

  Freeze your credit?

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Super simple. That's like, that's like a one and done thing. You can do that tonight.

• 1:10:50Mel Robbins?

  Okay, because then if you've frozen your credit, because you're not taking out any loans, you're not opening up new credits, that means nobody else can either.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:58Mel Robbins?

  Oh, I love that. Okay.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  You can have identity theft unless you give them like extra passwords and stuff, but it's a different thing.

• 1:11:03Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so fourth thing I'm doing?

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  The fourth thing you are doing is taking nine seconds before you click on any link.

• 1:11:10Mel Robbins?

  Oh, nine seconds.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's the psychology about the nine seconds. It's just enough time for you to like, take a deep breath, think and realize like where you are.

• 1:11:21Mel Robbins?

  Got it.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  I didn't do the psychology aspect of it, but that's what the nonprofit did. So take nine seconds and I always just say, just don't click on links. I know that that is not like as easy for most people. But take nine seconds before you click on any link. And if there's an option for you to just call, I would call.

• 1:11:37Mel Robbins?

  Well, and also in those nine seconds, you can look at the email address.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Exactly. You can look at a lot of things.

• 1:11:45Mel Robbins?

  What's the final thing that we're going to do to protect ourselves?

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Limit the amount of data online. There's multiple ways to do this, right?

• 1:11:51Mel Robbins?

  How?

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  There's deletion services out there that like every month go through and manually delete all the information that keeps popping up.

• 1:11:58Mel Robbins?

  Are you kidding me?

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:11:59Mel Robbins?

  This was what I was gonna ask you.

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, there's, there's multiple services, but I use this one and I'm obsessed with it. It's called incogni. It's like the best thing ever.

• 1:12:07Mel Robbins?

  What's it called?

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  It's called incogni, like it's supposed to be like incognito, but.

• 1:12:10Mel Robbins?

  Incogni?

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Incogni, yeah.

• 1:12:11Mel Robbins?

  As I was sitting here listening, I was thinking like, how am I getting my old addresses, my mother's maiden name and my dogs that have died? And everything else and how am I, how am I going, you can actually scrub your stuff?

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:25Mel Robbins?

  You're kidding me?

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:12:26Mel Robbins?

  I thought once it was out there, you can't get you like it's out there.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  I'm very excited for you to try it. It even tells you like within 10 seconds, it'll say, it'll start scanning and saying, hey, we found all this information. We're automatically sending out opt out requests on your behalf for you. It's, yeah, and it's international too.

• 1:12:42Mel Robbins?

  So the software is certainly something that if it's within your reach to look at to potentially, you know,

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  Think about.

• 1:12:48Mel Robbins?

  Get a subscription to. But if you want to try to do this manually, what are the big websites you go to and how do you do this?

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's like white pages, true people search, people finder. I have an entire series on how to do, delete it. So usually you have to go and you have to search your own name. Then you have to like scroll all the way down and they make it hard to opt out, but there's like an opt out page. Usually you can find it on their privacy policy. And then you have to have a separate request on that opt out page saying, this is me, please remove my data. I want you to remove it. And then this is bonus points, which we talked about. The sixth one is probably going through your apps and your app settings and seeing what they have access to. Again, it seems like it's a lot, but again, the apps, once you set it, it's one and done. Once you have the auto updates, one and done. Set your password, you don't have to change it for like at least another year unless there was a breach for that account.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  So all these things, it's just you're building routines. It's like brushing your teeth, right? Like brushing your teeth, washing your face. Did you like doing it? It took extra time when you were a little kid. You just wanted to sleep, but you learned that that was what's best. It's like any wellness routine too. Like, do I want to spend an hour at the gym? No, it's annoying, but it's going to be better for me in the long run. This is exactly that.

• 1:13:59Mel Robbins?

  What's the one thing out of everything you've taught us today? That you think is the most important thing for the person who is listening to do as soon as they are done listening? Other than send this to everybody in your family? Because we all need this information and we all need to be smarter about protecting ourselves. And so what's though the one thing to do tonight?

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would do passwords for sure. Get your key accounts, turn on multi-factor authentication and make sure you have an updated, strong, like long password.

• 1:14:32Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:33Mel Robbins?

  I can do that.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  You can do that.

• 1:14:35Mel Robbins?

  Kaitlyn, what are your parting words?

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  Cybersecurity is not for experts. It's literally for everyone. We use it every day and it's not supposed to be a scary word. Like I, that's why I don't even like saying cybersecurity because people get so detached from it. They're like, I can't do this. It's way too out of my comfort zone. I have no idea what you're even talking about. Cybersecurity is very simple things that you can do to empower yourself and your family and your loved ones to be safe. Because we are all online now. Don't be afraid. It's very simple things that you can do and it's not supposed to be scary. It's supposed to be something that you can feel empowered to and then share this with other people.

• 1:15:10Mel Robbins?

  I really appreciate everything that you taught me and the person that's here with us today. I have to admit, as we were starting the conversation.

• 1:15:24Mel Robbins?

  I had this really like heavy feeling, I have completely screwed this up. The cat is already out of the bag. There's no way that I'm getting in charge, in, in control of this. Everything's out there. There's no way to get it deleted. There's no way to protect myself. I've already screwed up. So why even bother on the advice? I feel completely different. I feel the opposite now. I feel very hopeful around both the deletion service and the fact that you can go to the websites and manually get yourself removed. So that does something. And I think all five of these things that you talked about, the password, the software updates, freezing your credit, nine seconds, and really limiting the amount of information

• 1:16:08Mel Robbins?

  that you are giving online. Because why do they need your phone number? Why do they need all that information you're just pouring out it online? And so I feel very empowered and excited to do everything that you just explained. And I feel a little bit smarter. Thank you, thank you, thank you for hopping on a plane and being here.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

• 1:16:33Mel Robbins?

  Oh, of course. And I also want to thank you. Thank you for spending time listening to this and getting smarter and empowering yourself. And didn't you just love the very specific things that you can do? I have a feeling this is one of those resource pages that everybody's going like link, link, link, tell me what to do. Also, thank you for sharing this with people that you care about because we all need the facts and we need to know specifically how to solve these issues and protect ourselves. And one more thing, in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you as your friend, that I love you and I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to create a better life. And there's no doubt in my mind, after listening to everything that Caitlin taught us today

• 1:17:13Mel Robbins?

  about protecting yourself online, that feeling safe as you're online, protecting yourself and your family by doing these simple things that she taught us today, will help you create and live a better life. Alrighty, I'll see you in the next episode. I'll be there waiting to welcome you in the moment you hit play.

• 1:17:34Mel Robbins?

  I would like to do it. We're doing it all.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:17:37Mel Robbins?

  Do it all.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  Enjoy.

• 1:17:39Mel Robbins?

  Hold on a second. Here comes dinner. Not good on the repeat, everybody. Oh, my God. Okay. That was probably the mashed potatoes bringing up the fish. Whew. Okay. I'm so excited for this. I'm so glad you're here.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  I'm ecstatic I'm here. So honored.

• 1:17:55Mel Robbins?

  Awesome. Screwed up. I screwed up.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  I told them that on the first. I was like, this is a red flag. You are from Ohio. But I have learned that there are a lot of really cool people from Ohio.

• 1:18:04Mel Robbins?

  There's a lot of really cool. Yep, you're all set. Okay, great. Fantastic job.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me. This is amazing.

• 1:18:12Mel Robbins?

  Really, really fantastic job.

• 1:18:19Mel Robbins?

  Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.