Picture this: it’s 1 am and you’re about to go to sleep. You glance at your phone and the unread email count is climbing, again and again. You open your inbox to find hundreds of newsletters you never signed up for, in languages you don’t speak, from websites you’ve never heard of. What is going on?

It’s a decoy. Scammers flood your inbox so that one email, usually a receipt or confirmation for a fraudulent purchase, gets buried before you ever see it.

In this episode, we’re joined by Sekar Langit, a cybersecurity specialist at a financial institution in New York, who lived this exact scenario. Even with experience running security awareness, she found herself with a hijacked card and a $1,000 lilac iPhone waiting to be collected. Sekar walks us through what happened, how card skimming at ATMs fits into the picture, what to look for before you use a cash machine, and why trusting your instinct (and Googling it) might be the best defence you have.

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Have you thought about changing careers recently? Our guest has changed careers multiple times. She moved from tourism and events, to employment consulting, to tech, and finally into space.

Geraldine Olea is the founder of Academy Olea, which helps professionals pivot into tech careers, and Olea Pacific Advisory, which helps international space organisations enter the Australian market. She was a Mentor of the Year finalist at this year's Space Connect Awards, and her writing on career transitions and diversity in tech has appeared in Entrepreneur, The Daily Telegraph, and Women's Agenda.

Annie-Mei and Anika sit down with Geraldine to talk about how people can use their existing skills to transition into other industries, as well as the relationship between cybersecurity and space. They discuss the famous Australian movie The Dish and what the space industry is like.

They also get into why more women are moving into cybersecurity, what it's like being the diversity hire in a male-dominated industry, and why representation can't rest on the shoulders of just one person.

Note: just to clarify that The Dish in Parkes is a telescope

Connect with Geraldine:
🔗 academyolea.com
🔗 oleapacificadvisory.com

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Content note: this episode discusses technology-facilitated abuse and may not be suitable for all listeners.

In this episode, we're joined by Emerald Sage who is the founder and CEO of the Digital Resilience Project, a not-for-profit supporting people experiencing technology-facilitated abuse through trauma-informed digital safety services.

With over 20 years in open source intelligence (OSINT), including more than a decade working within Australia's government security and intelligence community, Emerald is now using her skills to give back through the Digital Resilience Project.

We break down what OSINT actually is, why it's become a democratising force in intelligence work, and how the very same techniques used for national security can be weaponised against everyday people.

While we all want to take photos of special moments in our life (eg. graduations, weddings and birthdays), Emerald provides some useful tips on how we can be a little more careful so that we aren't giving away things like our location or workplace.

We also go deep on technology-facilitated abuse: how perpetrators exploit smart home devices, connected vehicles, and AI-generated image-based abuse to monitor and control victim-survivors, and why Emerald believes the biggest misconception about digital safety is that it's a 'tech problem' rather than a people problem.

We asked what inspired Emerald to start the Digital Resilience Project and the reasons may surprise you.

Resources mentioned:

• Digital Resilience Project (digitalresilienceproject.org)
• ANROWS research on technology-facilitated abuse (https://www.anrows.org.au/publication/technology-facilitated-abuse-national-survey-of-australian-adults-experiences/read/)
• eSafety Commissioner's Office (https://www.esafety.gov.au/)

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