Cyber Risk Witch

21/08/2026

We all know someone who doesn't believe in planning for anything. They roll through life on vibes, good times, and trusting the universe. After all, we're just floating on a rock through space, bro.

But at least the rock has a trajectory. Do you?

Without one, decisions get made anyway, just not by you. Your job, family, relationship, or an algorithm starts to set the terms of your life instead of you.

New blog post on personal governance, and five steps to take a leadership role in your own life. Link in the comments below. 👇

11/08/2026

Have you started writing worse on purpose so a machine doesn't flag you as AI?

I stopped using em dashes. I love em dashes. I gave them up anyway.

New post on Substack's new AI detector, a 1706 Virginia witch trial, and what we're sacrificing to prove we're human. Link below. 👇

https://cyberriskwitch.substack.com/p/ai-detector-spectral-evidence?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ai_witch_hunt_spectral_evidence

09/08/2026

🧙‍♀️ Salem had the ducking stool. We have a percentage on a screen.

Back in the day, if you floated in water, you were a witch.

Today, if an AI detector scores your work as 87% AI, you're a fraud.

Neither test proves what people think it proves, but both get treated like authoritative evidence.

New blog post is up on the AI witch hunt, why AI detectors can misfire, and how you can protect your creative and intellectual property from false AI accusations.

Link in the comments below 👇

28/07/2026

It's 3am. You're staring at the ceiling, running the same decision loop for the fourth time tonight. Take the job or stay? Leave the relationship or give it another try?

How can you make better decisions with things are uncertain and nothing is guaranteed?

It's called risk-based decision making, and it's not about cataloging everything that could hurt you and then hiding under the covers. It's about knowing what you're walking into before you commit.

Fear-based thinking asks "what if everything goes wrong?"

Risk-based thinking asks strategic questions, and gives you fewer things to worry about, not more.

New blog post is up about risk-based decision making, and how to run it on any life decision. Link in the comments below 👇

19/07/2026

We manage risk at work like it's sacred. Threat models, risk assessments, contingency plans. Then we go home and make the biggest decisions of our lives based on vibes and wishful thinking.

Personal Risk Management 101 is the fix. It takes the same frameworks businesses use to protect what matters and points them at your actual life: who you trust, where you work, what you share online and off, and when to walk away from situations that aren’t serving you.

Four steps. No spreadsheets required (unless that's your love language). Check out the blog post in the comments 👇

06/07/2026

Someone in a local social media group got furious at their doctor's office this week and went public with it. They said a human wouldn't talk to them until they "checked in with AI."

… except the system they described in detail wasn't AI. It was a standard digital check-in kiosk. The same kind doctor's offices have used for over a decade.

The comments then devolved into a war on AI, with a few people pointing out that the commenters were mad at the wrong thing.

That's the actual risk right now. Not AI. It’s our ability to tell what's actually AI from what we just don't like or understand.

New Substack post in the comments. 👇

05/07/2026

AI isn’t just changing technology, it's changing us.

Everyone is asking whether AI will take our jobs. But what happens when it starts making your decisions for you?

One day you’re asking it to rewrite an email.

The next you’re using it to:

🧠 remember things for you
🧩 think through every problem
⚖️ settle every argument
👁️ validate every instinct

The real AI risk isn’t some Hollywood robot apocalypse. It’s the slow shift in how we think, trust, create, and relate to the world.

In my latest blog post, I break down the personal AI risks I think everyone should understand. Link in the comments below. 👇

02/07/2026

✉️ Update: My newsletter has moved to Substack.

If you want Cyber Risk Witch updates delivered straight to your inbox instead of hoping the algorithm decides to show it to you, sign up below. 👇

Strategic magic for protecting your physical, emotional, and digital life. 💻 🔮🪄. Click to read Cyber Risk Witch, by Katherine | Cyber Risk Witch, a Substack publication. Launched 6 months ago.

17/06/2026

After my divorce a couple years ago, I started seeing content in my feed where women were talking about "decentering men." A lot of it was validating. Some of it was genuinely good.

But then I started noticing some cracks. Creators preaching it while married to men or actively seeking a male partner. The advice quietly morphing into "But you can decenter your spouse too."

As a divorced woman who analyzes risk for a living, I have a different view. Link in the comments below. 👇

16/06/2026

I watched the Netflix documentary Maternal Instinct over the weekend and it's a fascinating front-row seat to something I talk about on my blog and Substack: Personal risk blindness.

Taylor Parker faked a pregnancy for ten months (yes, TEN…) using a silicone belly and faking doctor’s appointments and ultrasounds.

Security alerts were firing all over the place on this one. Friends and family kept telling Taylor’s boyfriend, Wade, that something didn’t seem right. Some information actually suggested she couldn’t get pregnant in the first place.

Wade kept plugging away, oblivious on the farm with his hogs, as the saxophones got louder in the background.

The failure in this case wasn't missing information. The information and red flags were there. The failure was the cost of Wade accepting it.

By the time the warnings arrived, Wade had already posed for maternity photos, made major purchases justified by Taylor’s fake inheritance, and told everyone he knew a baby was definitely coming.

Believing the truth meant tearing all of that down.

Personal risk blindness is a real risk gap: the alert you received, evaluated, and quietly filed under "oh, it’s probably fine" because the alternative was too expensive or embarrassing to face.

The scariest security vulnerability isn't ignorance. It's the sunk cost running in the background, lowering the bar every time.

👇 Link to my post on personal risk blindness in the comments.