Personal Branding, Safely: Protect yourself from a world of creeps and criminals

Personal branding brings networking, career opportunities and visibility, but it also makes people easier to target for harassment, stalking and doxing. The talk argues that anyone with data online faces some risk, and that the realistic goal is to reduce exposure and prepare responses rather than reach perfect privacy. It traces the term doxing back to 1990s hacker culture and surveys cases involving celebrities, activists, journalists and political figures, including people who revealed too much about themselves.

Much of the information attackers use is gathered legally from social media, people-search sites, breach data, archived web pages and photo metadata. A live demonstration starts from a single website and pivots through reverse image search, professional profiles and a people-search lookup to map an individual's online footprint. Recommended defenses include catch-all email addresses, unique usernames, device-based multi-factor authentication, segregated IoT networks, credit freezes, a separate phone number and mailing address, pruning old posts, opting out of data brokers, and limiting geotags and location access.

Monitoring covers login alerts, bank notifications, search alerts for your name, credit monitoring and tax-fraud indicators. If harassment starts, the speaker advises staying calm, capturing screenshots, reporting to platforms, ending active sessions and leaning on a support network. Resources mentioned include Maltego Community Edition and a guide to removing data from people-search sites.