Mastering Security in the Digital Age for Work-at-Home Entrepreneurs with Robert Siciliano

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rock Star podcast. We’re gonna be talking about something pretty important today. We’re gonna be talking about some security stuff. But before we do that, we are talking to the owner of Protect Now LLC, and what he does is he helps people to prevent data breaches, phishing, identity theft, all that kind of stuff.

Very excited to be talking today to Robert Siciliano. Hey, Robert, you ready to rock?

Robert Siciliano: I am. Thank you, Tim

Tim Melanson: Awesome. We always start off on a good note, so tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by

Robert Siciliano: Well, I have been, um, a solopreneur, uh, since probably, uh, early 2001. And here I am, uh, three kids later, uh, two mortgages, a, uh, work-at-home or I guess, um, full-time mom, wife. And, um, you know, I’ve managed to, uh, put one through college right now, and the other one’s on the way. [00:01:00] Private school for all these years.

Primarily, you know, uh, based on me working from home, and then getting on the road and doing my thing. Uh, it’s been a lifetime of, you know, for me, um, not necessarily knowing when the next paycheck’s gonna come in based on the nature of my business, and finding a cer- certain degree of security in insecurity.

You know? Not knowing where the next paycheck’s coming from. But I’ve managed to keep the lights on and, um, we’ve got a bit of a retirement account, and we should probably do good

Tim Melanson: Great stuff. Yeah, you got me beat, 2001. I started in 2008 working from home, so you know, it’s been a long time, and things have changed quite a bit in that amount of time, right? I mean, now people kind of get a little bit about working from home and you know, that. But back then, it was odd, wasn’t it?

Robert Siciliano: You know, I, um, have always found a certain level of pleasure in working [00:02:00] from my house. Uh, being able to pick up the phone and make sales calls, and use the internet to manage communications and to create. Um, and I’ve been doing that, you know, since the di- the days of dial-up AOL, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Robert Siciliano: And, um, when I first started working from home full-time, it did feel kinda weird, you know, due to the fact that I’d been, like, working at a job eight to 10 hours a day for the previous 13 years.

And I kinda felt like, at the beginning, like I should be doing more, or I should have more of a routine, or I should be reporting somewhere. And I, I had to work on creating a certain level of internal discipline, and creating that structure and routine for myself early on. And then once I did, I fell right into it, and, um, you know, at this point I would consider myself unemployable.

Uh, I could never work for anybody at this point, you know? I could never be told what [00:03:00] to do, so to speak. That, um, you know, I, uh, I wake up to my body clock at this point, I go to bed at my body clock, and the only time I ever wake up to an alarm is if I got a flight the next morning

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. Well, that’s awesome. Congratulations. That’s really, that’s really what this show is all about. But now, on that note, I mean, there are some things that don’t go as planned, and I’m sure in all those years there have been something that kind of caught you off guard. And I’m wondering, I’d like to talk about that bad note because it does kind of hold people back from getting started, and I’m wondering, what was the biggest mistake that you made on this journey?

Robert Siciliano: Um, biggest mistake I’ve made. You know, when you do work from home, or at least from my perspective, for the nature of my business, we tend to, um, reach out to others that might have a bit more expertise than we do, and, um, on topics that we could learn to do it ourselves, but we reach out to others that, um, [00:04:00] seem to have more of a handle on it.

And, uh, and then we invest in them, and we invest in their expertise. And we soon find out, often too late, that, um, you know, like they’re not really as good at what they do as their marketing materials say that they are as good as, and that I probably could have saved myself two, three, four, five, $6,000 and not invested them, in them, and maybe learned what it is that I should be doing for myself, uh, to build my brand based on, you know, what I know about me and brand building, and then learn more.

So I think it’s like hiring experts to do work for us that when we don’t quite understand what that work is or should be. And I think that we really need to invest in ourselves and our own education on the various aspects of building a business before [00:05:00] we invest in others to do that for us

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Yeah, th- this topic has come up quite a few times and, you know, of course, you know, at some point there are things that you shouldn’t be doing in your business that you could have somebody that knows more than you do about it. Th- that makes sense, right? But on the other hand, I, I love your point because how do you know whether they’re doing a good job if you don’t even know what a good job looks like, right?

Robert Siciliano: We don’t

Tim Melanson: E- exactly, and so it ends up being one of those situations where you find out way too late after you spend way too much money and whether you’ve… whe- when you’ve lost all this time. So, you know, if you were to do it over again, then what… how would you have done that differently?

Robert Siciliano: Well, I tell you, um, I’m 57, and, uh, to do it over, if, like, right now, like literally today, um, is probably the best time to do it over, so to speak, because we have AI. [00:06:00] And AI provides you all the answers to all the questions that you’ll ever need to ask, and it gives you that blueprint and that layout for pretty much anything and everything that you could ever possibly screw up.

And, and, and, like, just, like, increase that learning curve, like, instantly based on doing the right search, asking the right questions. Like, there’s never been a better time to make really good decisions from the beginning. I mean, it’s just phenomenal. Like, it– I’ve been saying for, you know, what is it? Uh, 25 years, I, I, I need two of me.

I need four of me. But I need two of me. Well, AI at this point is, like, three of me. You know? It’s not f- I’m not fully automated with AI as some people are, but I’m asking all the right questions, and it’s doing a lot of the research and the work for me to cut the learning curve. And, um, it’s just… You know, it truly is [00:07:00] a resource for us independents that, uh, we just didn’t have before, you know?

And it’s great

Tim Melanson: I agree with you. Yeah, I mean, uh, o- one of the things that good business people do well is research, right? Is, is finding out what questions to ask. And I mean, it’s just at the drop of a at the click of a finger that you can all of a sudden get all the questions that you’re supposed to ask. Not even necessarily the answers, but the questions that you’re supposed to ask to the person that you’re about to hire.

Uh, I mean, and I, I bought a, a car recently, and it, I mean, it, it was amazing just going in with, with all this data and, and the salesman going like, "Oh, man." And, and you know, the, the, the chat questions, I mean, I even told them that I’ve, I’ve got this from chat. "Here, I’ve got all the questions from chat. This is what he tells me, what it tells me to ask you."

And I asked the guy, and he’s like, "Oh, okay, well, I guess I have to be honest right now because it’s gonna find these answers way faster than I can." Uh, but that would work really well with hiring any type [00:08:00] of subcontractor, right?

Robert Siciliano: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, w- w- this is a really good time to, to, to get out on your own, uh, due to the fact that, you know, all the technology at our fingertips is right there.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Robert Siciliano: I would say for most of us that, um, are functioning in an older technology environment, like when I say older technology, if you’re like on a laptop or a desktop that’s like four or five years old, you need to upgrade, because all the resources that we have in front of us right now of, are, are, are, are, are, are, uh, uh, RAM or data intensive, you know, processor intensive, and they require newer hardware to facilitate newer, uh, software

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think, I think you’re, you’re right. I think there’s a lot of people that are scared of, of this new AI thing, right? And it’s, it’s unfortunate because you know, it’s not gonna go anywhere, I don’t think. I mean, it’s so useful for those of us who have embraced it that it’s just, it’s just not gonna [00:09:00] go anywhere.

So the people that are kinda going, "Well, you know, I’m not gonna do that yet," they probably gonna get left behind. But then on the other side of that coin, it can’t do everything perfectly. And like you said, it’s not, you’re not completely automated. I’m not sure if you’d really want to be completely automated.

I mean, you wanna have some, uh, you know, part in that business, don’t you?

Robert Siciliano: Absolutely, yeah. But for those who are just starting off, you know, even the simple task of, of writing an email, and writing the actual email, and having the, the, the, the tool built into the email clean up your words, that in and of itself is actually a really great way to begin. And not that, like, every single email should be written, you know, from the, from, from the get-go by, um, the AI tool.

Again, like, you write the email and have the email clean you up. For me and my character and the way that I write, I’ve had, um, email remind [00:10:00] me that my tone is too aggressive,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Siciliano: and that’s my nature.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Robert Siciliano: My nature is being aggressive. Um, not because, like in a mean way, but just like, you know, like a get to the point way.

And, um, email has kind of softened my delivery, which, uh, well, AI has softened my delivery. And for somebody like me, you know, it’s been, uh, a game changer for me

Tim Melanson: M- me too. I’m actually the same way in my emails. My emails can be a little bit direct. And, uh, I, I noticed pretty quickly when I started to put things into, uh, chat to rewrite it, and it would rewrite things back, and it, it kind of, like, gives you a little bit of self-awareness. I’m like, "Oh, yeah, that does sound a lot, a lot better than what I just wrote," you know?

Yeah. Right on. So let’s talk a little bit about practicing, and I mean, this can go in so many different directions for practice. It could be personal practices, it could be business practices. Uh, but I, I think we could probably take it into the security aspect for you because, I [00:11:00] mean, w- we… many people are just going into this blind with, you know, all these scams and all these phishing and all this stuff going on right around us.

And I mean, bring up AI. I, I’m sure that these hackers are using AI to, to get around certain things. What can we do? What kind of practices can we put into place to protect us?

Robert Siciliano: Yeah, so AI, um, is, you know, amazing, and criminals look at it that way too. And it’s allowing them to scale their businesses in, in ways in which, um, you know, have never really been possible. Uh, one criminal hacker could, you know, facilitate hundreds if not thousands of what we call neural puppets, and essentially, uh, use one tool to reach out to thousands of people at the same time and communicate with them, and to groom those people in such a way where the criminal is getting them to believe his or her ruse, you know?[00:12:00]

And today, um, organized crime is engaged in cybercrime. You know, it’s looking like a multi-trillion dollar business by, you know, the early 2030s. Uh, it’s already eclipsed the, um, illicit drug trade at this point. And so if, if, if we as consumers aren’t doing the absolute basics, as we- if we as small businesses aren’t doing the absolute basics, then it’s just a matter of time until you’ve got egg in your face, or worse, your email is compromised, which ultimately n- means your bank account gets compromised or your crypto gets compromised.

So there’s, there’s some basic, basic things that we all should be doing right now that many of us don’t. And I know that many of us aren’t, because I get in front of live audiences for a living, whether it’s virtually like this or more mostly in person, and I ask a series of questions to kinda get, like, the pulse of those who I’m speaking to and [00:13:00] where they’re at in what they’re doing and what they’re not doing more than anything.

And so one of the questions I ask my audiences is, like, "Okay, so show of hands, how many of you can honestly say that you are using a different passcode across all your critical accounts?" And different means like you’re not using the same passcode twice. And different also means that, you know, you’re using long, strong passwords, like uppercase, lowercase, numbers and characters and so forth, and never using the same passcode twice.

When I ask that question, if I get 10, 15% of the room to raise their hand, "Oh yeah, I’m using a different long, strong passcode across multiple accounts," 10 to 15% for a room is a lot, which means like 80 to 90% of the room is using the same passcode, easy to guess, easy to hack, easy to crack, across multiple accounts.

And that just sounds so rudimentary, but it’s a big deal [00:14:00] because it doesn’t take much research to determine that right now as many as 15 to as much as 20 billion passwords are on the dark web. Think about that for a second. Like over the past two decades, there’s about 300 billion of our records on the dark web.

300 billion. And 15 to 20 billion of those records are actual passwords. You, you could do a search on various tools that will expose, you know, multi-billions worth of, of credentials. Um, like I know like from one of these tools, you can see like 200 something million people are using one, two, three, four, five, six as a passcode still today, you know?

And so that’s problematic. And then on top of that, we’re, we’re, we’re talking access control right now. You know, less than 10% of consumers are using a password manager, and a password manager is the tool that you [00:15:00] would use to facilitate having a different long, strong passcode across multiple accounts.

So, you know, the numbers make sense that, you know, less than 10% of the public is using a password manager and 10-ish percent are changing up their passcodes and using long, strong. And then on top of that, I- the next question is like how many of you are using two-factor authentication for all your critical accounts, including email, you know?

And two-factor authentication, of course, is when like you enter your credentials, username and passcode, and then get a one-time text message. Sometimes you might get like a special code to an app, whatever the case is. If I get 15 to 20% of the room to raise their hand, it’s u- usually a little bit more ’cause it’s required more often, 15 to 20% is a lot, which means 80-plus percent are not even using two-factor authentication.

It is 2020, you know, six-ish at this point, and when [00:16:00] we’re no further along today than many of us were 10, 15, 20 years ago, you know. Bad actors know this, and they’re using that against us

Tim Melanson: Agreed. I, so I’ve been using a password manager for quite a while now, and it, it, it definitely is a, a game changer in, um, in being able to manage all these different passwords because as you said, I try to have a different password for every, for every account that I log into. And how do you, how are you supposed to manage all that stuff in your head or even on a piece of paper?

It’s just, it’s not, it’s not ple- uh, feasible, right? So but then when I tell people about this, m- uh, the, you know, these password managers, the most common result that I get o- other than, "Okay, let me use that," like, ’cause some of them do, uh, is, "Well, how do I trust that? How do I trust the password manager?"

That, that’s a question for you

Robert Siciliano: So, okay, so there’s a couple things going on there, right? A, they don’t understand the [00:17:00] technology. B, um, they might have heard that, you know, in the past some password managers have been hacked. Sure. Uh, password managers are security companies, and like most security companies at some level have been hacked.

Most banks at some level have been hacked. Like Microsoft’s been hacked, Apple’s been hacked. Like, you know, Bank of America’s been hacked. Like- Most organizations have been hacked at some level. What does that mean? Does that mean that all systems down? No, not at all. It means that some level s- at some point in their network was penetrated, and generally they only got so far.

In some cases, like they’d shut the company down, but I’m not aware of any password manager or bank for that matter, that was infiltrated to such a degree where they were shut down for good. I’ve seen it happen to small businesses, but I’ve never seen it happen to a major institution or a password manager for that matter.

Tim Melanson: Yep

Robert Siciliano: I [00:18:00] think that like people just don’t understand what that hack means or what that looks like. And the majority of the time, if and when a password manager was compromised, you know, they got access to a certain part of the network, but not to the client’s encrypted data, you know? And even if they got an access to the encrypted information, it was encrypted, which means it wasn’t in plain text.

So I think that the majority of the time we bui- when people ask those questions, it’s because they just truly don’t understand. But the other part of it is, which is the most unfortunate part, is people kind of like throw their hands up in the air and say, "Well, why would I use a password manager if a password manager could, can just get hacked?"

So what, what they’re really doing is they’re engaging in fatalism. So when it comes to security, lots of people engage in fatalistic views of security. Why bother? Which is kind of human nature, and that, that… There’s something to that. And I’ve been doing what I do now for like 30, 40 years. 30 years professionally, 40 years in my life, okay?

[00:19:00] And so in this dialogue, when I’m engaged in an audience, you know, talking about security, what it is, what it isn’t, I, I ask a number of qualifying questions essentially to challenge their belief systems to find out, you know, why they do or don’t do what they do. And one of the questions I ask them is like, "How many of you have a home security system?"

Which is a pretty basic question, and depending on if you’re urban versus suburban or rural, you know, the, the answers are different, right? But truly, like if I get 15% of the room to say, "Oh yeah, we got a home security system," that’s a lot. Which means 85% of the general public does not have a home security system.

And so I ask, you know, "Why don’t you have that home security system?" And there’s like three common answers that I get, and one of them is, "Well, we don’t have a home security system because we have insurance." As if insurance is gonna protect you and your physical being at 3:00 AM, you know? Or, "We don’t have a home security system because [00:20:00] my husband says, ‘If they’re gonna break in, they’re gonna break in.

What are we gonna do?’" Well, I would divorce his ass, frankly, okay? Because, like, I’m gonna do what I gotta do to protect my girls while they’re sleeping, my honey, myself at 3:00 a.m., to be frank, you know? And I don’t, I don’t engage in fatalistic attitudes when it comes to security. I put systems in place. I don’t…

I, like, I would never tell a, a law enforcement officer, "W- why bother putting a bulletproof vest on? Like, what are you, what are you, an idiot? Why would you bother? I mean, if you can get… You, you could just get shot in the head." I mean, is that common sense? No. I mean, he’s protecting his upper torso. He can’t protect everything.

Security is never gonna be 100%, but it’s a process. It’s a journey. Like, you engage in these best practices to reduce risk. But the most common answer that I get as to why people don’t install the home security system, and this is the most unfortunate part, is they say, "Well, we don’t have a home security system because I don’t [00:21:00] wanna live like that.

Tim Melanson: Hmm

Robert Siciliano: don’t wanna have to worry. I don’t wanna live in fear. I don’t wanna be paranoid," is what they most often say. And that is all because we, mostly as Americans, ’cause I speak all over the world, truly as Americans, we generally live safely. We generally live comfortably. "I live in a safe neighborhood," 98% of my audiences say, ’cause we want to believe that we do.

And generally, most live in a safer neighborhood, let’s say, okay? But it’s that fatalistic, "It can’t or won’t happen to me," or, "I don’t wanna live like that. I don’t wanna be paranoid," that prevents us from truly recognizing risk. Because most people have an unhealthy relationship w- with security. They look at it as a bad thing, as if installing a home security system is gonna make you worry.

It’s gonna make you live in [00:22:00] fear. It’s gonna make you paranoid. And paranoia is a mental health diagnosable dis-ease, truly. But we as a culture have viewed it and looked at it for decades as truly a bad thing,

Tim Melanson: Hmm

Robert Siciliano: and that’s why most people don’t engage in the basics. That’s why they don’t install a password manager.

"Well, if it can get hacked, why bother?" You know? And really, what it boils down to is, one of the most common questions I get in a live audience is, "Well, how do I know what links are okay to click when I do a Google search?" And that answer or that question g- that question truly shows that people just really aren’t invested in learning about technology or digital literacy for that matter, or learning about security of that technology.

They’re, they’re just not interested. They don’t spend the time. They don’t engage in the process, you know? Like, [00:23:00] w- when I, when I do a presentation, I ask a, a room full of people, you know, or I tell a room full of people, "Listen, if you don’t understand this stuff, just find yourself a 14-year-old and they’ll do it for you."

You know? And, and, and the r- the audience laughs because it’s such a true thing. And then I say to them, "You know, that is kinda funny, but I don’t know that we should any longer consider that acceptable," especially with what’s going on with AI and, and, and how criminal hackers have ramped up. And that if you look at your 14-year-old as like, "They know more about technology than I do," we’ve basically just thrown our hands up in the air and given up.

I don’t know that that’s truly okay or acceptable at this point, and that fatalism and misunderstanding what security is, which is about, you know, gaining control, versus what it isn’t, which is worry and fear and paranoia. I think that, like, that dichotomy prevents us from managing risk. And going forward, I think that, like, [00:24:00] everybody here today, you need to download a password manager.

You need to set up two-factor authentication. Like, you can’t look at your 14-year-old as, "They know more than I do about technology," and we can’t continue to engage in fatalistic views of what security is versus what it isn’t. And that, you know, it’s about time now because of what’s going on with AI, and especially if you’re considering working at home, um, no longer under, under the corporate umbrella, and many of us are getting those, those, those scammy emails from people that we know now whose email was compromised.

We get those emails to e- our inbox because it’s coming from their actual email, and it, it’s people that we know, like, and trust that says, "Hey, here’s the latest proposal. Click on the DocuSign link." And what you know is that they got hacked.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Robert Siciliano: And once that happens to you, your credibility’s out the window at this point

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s very difficult to recover from [00:25:00] something like that. Now, and, and, you know, one last thing on the password manager thing is that for me, it simplified my life pretty drastically. Like, I mean, some of these password managers just hook, hook right into your browser. Uh, I use LastPass, so hopefully that’s a good one.

But, but, uh, but it allows you to just… It just, it autofills your passwords. Like, why would you not do that? That’s so much faster.

Robert Siciliano: I’ve been using a password manager for 20 plus years, and it is the best use of my time, my money for my security and my privacy. It’s $17, $18 a year. Are you kidding me? And the beauty of it, just like you said, it saves time. The other thing is like, like I said, I’m 57. Like I’m still relatively young, but I could go any day now.

I mean, that’s the reality of it. None of us are guaranteed, you know, existence to our 80s, right? Car accident, heart attack, you name it, right? And I’ve had conversations with my girls and my wife. Like if and when I go, my password manager is, is, is my digital [00:26:00] life. You have access to every single investment account, every financial.

It is my continuity when I’m gone. And I’ve told them over and over again, "Pay for my mobile phone for at least a year after I’m gone," ’cause this is where the two-factor authentication is too. It’s continuity in our afterlife

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Uh, and actually these password managers will actually even, you can delegate someone to be your person once you go to. It, I mean, uh, yeah, I mean, I can’t say enough about it too. Password managers have been super, super helpful. And I, I like, I, I just think, you know, if you’re going to, um, say, "Well, I don’t know if I can trust the password manager," you can likely trust the password manager better than your one, two, three, four, five, six password, right?

So, you know, and, and for you to be able to remember all of these crazy passwords, it’s just, it, it’s just too much. Like, you’re not, you’re not gonna be able to do that. So it’s either you’re gonna be setting an easy password or setting a very difficult one and forgetting it [00:27:00] all the time. Why not use a password manager?

Y- it’s one crazy

Robert Siciliano: I’m not Rain Man. You know? I, I’m not Rain Man. I’m no savant. And, um, you know, at 57 I’m at capacity over here, you know? So, uh, it’s the best use of your time, your money, and your privacy. It… There’s really no reason not to at this point

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And then, uh, so then, uh, about your, you know, your home office and all that stuff, now we’ve talked about, you know, having, uh, a personal security system, right, at, at your house, and also now a, a password system. So now that’s protecting your computers, protecting your, your home itself. What, what else, what other practices can we have?

Robert Siciliano: So I mentioned two-factor authentication, and while that just sounds so remedial, um, look it, with pretty much everything that I explain to a live audience, I go to Google, right? And I’ll search password manager, and right there on the s- on the first page, uh, either AI Overview explains it to me and/or there’s a half a dozen articles on the first page of search from, like, PC Magazine that recommends, like, the top [00:28:00] 10 best password managers out there.

I’ll do the same thing for, um, what is a VPN or, or find me a VPN or VPN software. And the same thing, there’s five articles on the first page of search, you know, from Wired Magazine, from PC Magazine. They talk about the best VPNs out there. What’s a VPN? It’s a virtual private network software program that you download on your mobile phone or your laptop, so when you’re at the airport, the hotel, the resort, when you’re out and about using free Wi-Fi, it encrypts your data when you’re on that free Wi-Fi.

‘Cause generally, people that are working from home are, you know, working from, uh, uh, you know, in- Internet

Tim Melanson: shop. Yep

Robert Siciliano: Uh, you know, we, we, we, we’re out in public here and there. You know, we’re on the road. You know, there’s a reason for that, you know? And, um, you know, we’ve gotta protect our data for our clients when we’re out and about.

Like, that’s so important, you know? It… Not to is kinda criminal, you know? And, and in some cases, um, it [00:29:00] leads to class action lawsuits, you know, depending on the size and scope of your organization, and it can be detrimental to the, to the, to the survival of your business. So, uh, just, I just do a quick search for all of these different tools and tasks that are available to me, uh, and show them how that works, you know, for them.

And anything you want or need in regards to your information security or personal protection, search it quickly and right there it’s, it’s, uh, available to you online

Tim Melanson: Love it. Right on. Well, it’s time for your guest solo, so tell me what’s exciting in your business right now

Robert Siciliano: Well, I’ll tell you, uh, we’ve already discussed it. It’s

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it is

Robert Siciliano: look it, I’ve been doing what I do for, like I said, 30 years professionally and 40 years, like, been speaking on personal protection. And, you know, there was a time when… I mean, I’ve done, like, 500 TV shows. I’ve done Howard Stern twice. Like, I’ve done every major media that you can think of.

I’ve done China television, Russian television, you [00:30:00] know, uh, all the morning shows, Good Morning America, Today Show, like, all of them. W- ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, you name it, okay? Only thing I haven’t done is Oprah, right? That said, right, for years and years and years, what I would do is get called by the media to talk about, you know, the latest data breach, the latest vulnerability, okay?

I don’t get those calls anymore, um, because no one really cares at this point. Uh, I don’t get calls on data breaches any longer. Data breaches used to be, like, you know, hundreds of thousands of records. Now they’re tens of millions of records, and the media doesn’t even pick up on that stuff any longer.

Tim Melanson: No

Robert Siciliano: But now with AI, and AI-driven fraud, and deep fakes, and voice cloning, and organized crime basically fully involved using victims of human trafficking to perpetrate these crimes now, that awfulness, um, has [00:31:00] reinvigorated what it is that I do and what I speak to. So what I’m excited about is AI and how it’s being used, and how it can be used to protect us, too.

And that’s truly invigorated the topic of cybersecurity. It’s made what I do, like, Hollywood-level, James Bond 007, Mission Impossible, Tom Cruise, Minority Report stuff. It’s, it’s infused my topic with a tremendous amount of vigor. And, um, you know, that’s both good and bad. It’s a double-edged sword. Uh, but for, you know, those who are paying attention, the clock is ticking.

And if you wanna protect yourself and your family and your business, it’s so 101 at this point, the tools that are available to you, and all you gotta do is care about security. Put these systems in place and you’re gonna be good

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and, and a lot of them are free tools too. Like, a [00:32:00] lot of these password managers are free for the, the, you know, the basic level, right?

Robert Siciliano: Yeah. And if two-factor authentication is absolutely

Tim Melanson: Free.

Robert Siciliano: and yeah, and, and the, and what’s happening now is a lot of the big companies, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and so forth, Facebook, they’re all incorporating passkeys. And passkeys are the next level of password management. And the beauty of a password manager is a password manager will manage the keys for all your passkeys.

So even as password managers go out the way of the wooden nickel, or I’m sorry, passwords themselves go out the way of the wooden nickel, uh, password managers will not because they’ll be the primary, uh, tool that you’ll use to manage your passkeys. So get familiar with password managers now because as we phase out passwords themselves, passkeys are the next [00:33:00] step which the password managers will help you manage

Tim Melanson: Well, so, um, I, I’m just, what’s the difference between a passkey and a password then?

Robert Siciliano: A passkey is basically technology that’s going on in the background that recognizes your hardware, it recognizes your MAC address, it recognizes a number of factors about you, including existing passcodes. It recognizes biometrics. It recognizes a whole host of numerical identifiers, ultimately encrypting all of that into a crypto key of sorts, and it’s shared through various platforms.

And ultimately, it requires a number of different levels of authentication based on your hardware and your software and all those various data points in order t- for you to get access. And as we go, and as we continue to get improvement [00:34:00] on and ubiquitous of passkeys, um, we will begin to phase out passwords pretty quickly.

Because passwords themselves are basically, at this point, a single, like, nine, 10, 12, 24-character phrase or, you know, numerics, uppercase, lowercase, and so forth, that it’s gonna be gone. The passkey is that plus a half a dozen other, um, forms of authentication,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. Okay

Robert Siciliano: uh, that really can’t be cracked

Tim Melanson: Okay. So tell me, how do people work with you? Like, what, what is it that you do for a, for a client, and what kind of person would make a good client for you?

Robert Siciliano: So for me, um, I work with meeting planners, uh, VPs of security awareness training. I work with small businesses that truly recognize risk, and they wanna put systems in place, uh, to make their [00:35:00] employees that much more aware of risk. So I primarily provide security awareness training, is what we do. Um, that said, uh, I’m available at protectnowllc.com, protectnowllc.com.

Tim Melanson: Okay, awesome. And so this would be for mainly businesses that would want to train their workforce then

Robert Siciliano: Yeah, or those of you who just wanna connect, who wanna learn more, just Google me, you know, Robert Siciliano, S-I-C-I-L-I-A-N-O. Hook up with me on LinkedIn and just follow my blog, and my blog is really there to keep you up to speed and in tune with managing risk. Like, it’s nothing complicated. It’s all easy stuff.

Uh, what I write and what I put out there is generally for everyday people just to make sure that when the bad guys choose you, that they quickly move on to somebody else because you are already a tougher target

Tim Melanson: And, and that’s a good point there, right? And isn’t that kinda true? Like, if, if, if you’ve got, uh, someone who’s looking to break into your house, if you’ve got the door locked, and by the way, the, uh, it, it [00:36:00] reminded me of that when you were talking about the security system. Would you just go out and leave the door unlocked?

Like, I don’t know. Is that paranoid if you’re locking the door, right?

Robert Siciliano: of people do leave the door unlocked because they literally say, "I don’t wanna live like that. I just wanna be free. I don’t wanna have to worry. I trust people." And you know what? 97% of all the people that you will ever meet in the course of your life are truly worthy of your trust, 97%. But guess what?

And you can do your own research, people. Between three, they say about 3% of women and as many as 6% of men are basically, as the medical community would diagnose them, as sociopaths and psychopaths. About 3 to 6% sociopaths and psychopaths. These are people that truly have or experience no shame, no empathy, no sympathy, no guilt, no remorse.

They look at you and I as their natural prey. They are the lions and the wolves. We are the gazelles and the rabbits, and they look at [00:37:00] us as truly their victims. And there are a lot of people out there, 3 to 6%, making a lot of noise, doing a lot of harm.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Robert Siciliano: And I don’t say that to put the fear in anybody. I put that i- in you to say, "Yeah, I should know how to manage risk," because why wouldn’t you wanna know how to do that?

To adopt the, "It can’t happen to me. I don’t wanna live like that. Why bother? I just trust people," you’re just simply functioning in denial, denial is wonderful. Denial is just like this psychological thing that we all possess. Everybody possesses denial, and everybody, to a certain degree, lives to a certain degree in denial, right?

‘Cause denial allows us to not have to worry and, and, and experience anxiety and live in fear. So denial has its value. It’s great. But I don’t know that it’s really effective at all when it comes to managing [00:38:00] risk. I think we’ve gone… The, the pendulum has swung too far towards denial

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Robert Siciliano: and, um, you know, it’s causing a lot of people to lose it, l- to lose their access to their accounts, to lose money, to lose their businesses because they’ve allowed denial to take over their existence when it comes to security

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And,

uh, I mean, some of this stuff might be harder than others, but for the most part, the things we’ve talked about today, I mean, the, the basics, a password manager, it, it’s, it’s not gonna affect your life a whole lot. Uh, I mean, in fact, actually, password managers are probably gonna make your life a little bit simpler, ’cause now all of a sudden, you know, your passwords will, will be auto-filled for the most part.

Putting a security system in your house or locking the door, is it inconvenient sometimes? Well, I suppose, right? But you could put some s- s- some systems in place, and I’m sure that we could probably learn a little bit more about that on your blog then, right?

Robert Siciliano: Yeah, and I talk about like, you know, in this podcast, those basic, basic things because most [00:39:00] people don’t do those basic, basic

Tim Melanson: right. That’s

Robert Siciliano: And so what I teach is a ph- a philosophy, a methodology that I call the strategic human firewall. And the strategic human firewall is I, I, I, I move from I trust by default to I verify everything.

And most people just trust by default. Most people, like receiving phone calls and emails and text messages, they’re clicking links, they’re reacting, they’re responding. Like, they’re not a strategic human firewall at all. Like, they’re not seeing the motivation of that inbound, incoming communication.

Whereas like people like you and I, like we’re seeing, "Okay, what’s the motivation of this text? Is this really my state’s, you know, registry of motor vehicles sending me a fine because I didn’t pay a ticket or I didn’t pay my toll? So am I really gonna click the link to pay my toll or am I just gonna ignore it because it’s probably BS?"

You know? [00:40:00] Most people aren’t even doing that. So the idea is to become a strategic human firewall so you recognize risk as it’s coming down the pike, so to speak. And that’s a relatively easy thing to do. Like I tell my audiences all the time, I can make pretty much all of you the top 10% of secure Americans because the top 10% aren’t engaging in password managers, changing up their passcodes or using two-factor authentication, never mind locking their doors or installing a home security system.

You do those things, you’re in the top 10% right there, you know? ‘Cause 90% are soft, easy targets, whereas us 10% are strategic human firewalls, we’re hard targets

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I think, and, uh, just as a general kind of like mindset too, anybody who’s, like, putting fear into you and saying, "You need to click on this right now, otherwise something’s gonna happen," uh, you [00:41:00] know, the, the, the thought I always have is like, "Okay, well, I’m reading this email right now. What if I had read it tomorrow or the next day?

Why is it so important within the next 48 hours?" It just seems obvious to me that, that, that this is a scam. But that’s how they operate, right? They try to catch you when you’re, when you’re, when you’re panicking.

Robert Siciliano: So you being a strategic human firewall innately already understand manufactured urgency.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm

Robert Siciliano: That’s what that is. Manufactured urgency is designed specifically to get our heart racing, to get our blood pumping, to get us to react and respond emotionally, right? And so we have this, this human blind spot that I call, that I talk about, and the human blind spot is, like, that we trust by default, that we want to and need to trust each other.

And that trust is, like, every person we meet, every phone call and email and text message we receive, we want to trust that the person on the other end [00:42:00] has our best interest in mind, that they don’t want or mean to hurt us. And so we, we wake up every day th- with that as being our baseline. And so when we get that phone call, when we get that email, when we get that text message with that manufactured urgency going into it that I want to and need to trust people, and that ruse has that urgency to it, but it could be probable.

I mean, it’s, it’s likely that that could be real, right? Or there’s a possibility it could be real. We don’t wanna think that evil, the sociopaths and the psychopaths, have targeted us. And our denial, and it can’t happen to me, and security is a bad thing, prevents us from recognizing risk.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Robert Siciliano: The physics of this makes so much sense to me, and they should to your audience at this point, ’cause probably nobody’s ever actually explained it like that.

But once you become that strategic human firewall, all of a sudden you’re like, "Yeah, I, I, I see what’s happening. I [00:43:00] see that and understand that manufactured urgency now. Oh, as my heart begins to pump, stop. Like, stop what I’m doing. Recognize, okay, so what’s really happening here? What are they trying to actually do?

Is this really true or is it fake?" And chances are 100% of the time it’s gonna be fake, especially with manufactured urgency. 100% of the time. I’m not gonna say 99.9, I’m gonna say 100.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yep, I agree. Right. Okay, so let’s talk about music for a second. Who is your favorite rock star or band?

Robert Siciliano: So you see what’s going on behind me? That, that’s, that’s Led Zeppelin’s song Remains the Same

Tim Melanson: Oh my. Okay. Well, of course.

Robert Siciliano: Yeah. So, uh, I am a big Led Zeppelin fan. Um, I actually owned ledzeppelin.com from, like, 1995 to 2001. Uh, it didn’t end so well. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I’m, I’m a big Zep head. My license plate on my car is Led Zep. [00:44:00] License plate on my bike is, um, Z-E-P-L-N. License plate on my wife’s car, because it used to be my plate, is Z-E-P-L-N 2, which is the best album.

And, um, yeah, I mean, I’m a big Zeppelin fan

Tim Melanson: Did you, do you play guitar at all? Ah.

Robert Siciliano: Oh, I am not a musician. My girls are musicians. Uh, they’ve been playing ever since they were three. So, um, but, uh, I don’t have the ability, no

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, that’s awesome. It’s so awesome talking to you, Robert. This has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much.

Robert Siciliano: My pleasure. Thank you

Tim Melanson: Awesome, and to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar