Cybersecurity and Social Media Influencing Pair Perfectly

For those on social media, top influencers can amass millions of “followers,” attract advertising dollars and secure other deals.

The automotive sector has Formula One racer Lewis Hamilton with 31.5 million Instagram followers. The beauty and cosmetics industry has makeup artist Huda Kattan with 52.1 million Instagram followers, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

And while these more popular industries adroitly harness social media influencers, the cybersecurity industry should not be left out, says cybersecurity social media influencer Caitlin Sarian, founder, director and handle of the “CyberSecurity Girl.” 

Among TikTok dances, YouTube videos of cats and Instagram ‘how-to’ cooking videos, cybersecurity has a place. It is an ideal forum for encouraging folks to join the cybersecurity workforce, she said, speaking in October at The Cyber Guild’s annual conference in Crystal City, Virginia.

“We need to get to the next generation and teach the next generation what a career in cyber looks like,” Sarian advised. “It doesn’t technically need to be coding. You can be any type of person and succeed as long as you’re excited.”

Sarian has paired educating the public on how to be safe online with getting more people interested in careers in cyber and encouraging more women into STEM fields as a whole—her three main goals or “pillars” of her online content.

Basically, she wants to tear away any misconceptions about working in cybersecurity. 

“I also had the wrong impression of cyber and the wrong impression of what an engineer looked like,” she said.
With a master’s degree in aerospace engineering and an early move into technology consulting at Ernst and Young, Sarian was asked if she was interested in cyber. 

“And in my head, I said, ‘Absolutely not,’” she recalled. “I do not code and I’m not a man,” speaking of the then 80-85% male cyber workforce. 

“But during the interview, I’m like, ‘Yes, sure. It sounds great,’” Sarian noted. “Anything to get the job, right! I don’t really know that much about it, but I’ll learn. I’m a fast learner. And later it led to different job opportunities, and I found I was really intrigued with cybersecurity.”

She started in cyber transformation, working with large companies and performing assessments after data breaches. “That is really what got my foot in the door,” she said. “And I started realizing, ‘Oh, I don’t have to code.’”

Sarian moved to the United Kingdom for two years to help Ernest and Young build out their data protection and privacy arm before the comprehensive General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, came into play.

At the time, she had the urge to teach young people about cybersecurity, challenging her original undergraduate degree in elementary education. She turned to social media.

“I actually started doing all my stuff on TikTok, under the alias of ‘CyberSecurity Girl,’ because I was mortified of what people would think about me,” Sarian explained. “At the time, I was a director-level at a large global law firm, and I was like, ‘If these people find out that I’m on TikTok, like doing dances, trying to get people into a career in cyber, I don’t know what is going to happen.’ I found out I didn’t really care, because it worked.”

Her videos about how to be safe online were especially successful. Now, the cyber social media influencer has worked with NATO, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, ABC and Good Morning America, and other organizations.

“I just want to educate the public,” Sarian told the cyber conference attendees. “I truly believe we are all so passionate about cybersecurity, but at the end of the day, we [in the cyber industry] probably are not the weakest link. It is the people that are not in this room that are the ones that need to understand how important cybersecurity is.”