I Got Hacked for Six Figures: What Every Woman Needs to Know About Cybersecurity

Essential cybersecurity strategies every woman must know to protect her finances and digital identity.

Beth Silverberg

Owner and Founder / Author

Sports Girls LLC

BY BETH SILVERBERG

I Got Hacked for Six Figures: What Every Woman Needs to Know About Cybersecurity

I am going to tell you something I do not talk about at dinner parties. I was hacked. Not in a minor, inconvenient way, but in a six-figure, life-altering, everything-you-built-is-now-at-risk way. And I am one of the most digitally aware people I know. I had been in pharmaceutical sales for 20 years. I built AI workflows. I run trading systems. I manage crypto wallets. I have educated thousands of students at Crypto Banter on how to protect themselves, use proper risk management, and trade for years. I thought I understood the landscape.

I did not understand it well enough.

What happened to me happens to women every day, at smaller and larger scales, in ways that rarely make headlines because the shame of it tends to keep us quiet. I am done being quiet. Because the thing that will protect you is not a complicated technical solution. It is knowing what I did not know—and I can give you that right now.

How It Happens: The Attack You Do Not See Coming

The most dangerous cyberattacks are not the ones that look like attacks. They look like a phone call from your bank, an email from a platform you trust, or a text message asking you to verify your identity. They look like someone who already knows your name, your account number, your email address, and enough personal details to make the conversation feel completely legitimate.

This is called social engineering. And it is the primary vector through which women—especially women managing their own finances, businesses, or investment accounts—lose money. The attacker is not breaking through a firewall. They are talking their way past you. And they are very, very good at it.

In the crypto and fintech space, where I operate, there are additional attack surfaces that most people do not think about: SIM swapping, where an attacker convinces your phone carrier to transfer your number to a device they control, giving them access to every text-based two-factor authentication code you receive; fake customer support pages that rank in search results; Discord and Telegram impersonators who pose as project admins; and wallet drainers disguised as legitimate transactions. The attack surface is enormous and growing.

The attacker is not breaking through a firewall. They are talking their way past you.

What I Lost, and What I Learned

Six figures. Gone. And with it, months of rebuilding, countless hours of attempting recovery through systems that are not designed for recovery, and a level of stress I would not wish on anyone. The hardest part was not the money—it was realizing how exposed I had been without knowing it, and how many other women around me were equally exposed, equally unaware, going about their days with the confidence of someone who has never been hit.

I am not writing this to frighten you. I am writing this because fear without information is useless, and information is exactly what I now have—and what I want to give you.

What Every Woman Needs to Do Right Now

You do not need to be a cybersecurity professional to protect yourself. You need to take the following steps once, and then maintain them. Consider this your digital security audit.

1. Use a password manager. If you are reusing passwords across accounts, you are one data breach away from losing access to everything that shares that password. LastPass, 1Password, and Bitwarden are solid options. Generate a unique password for every account and let the manager remember it.
2. Turn off SMS two-factor authentication where possible. Text message codes are vulnerable to SIM swapping. Switch to an authenticator app such as Google Authenticator or Authy, or a hardware security key like a YubiKey. This single change closes one of the most exploited attack vectors against financially active individuals.
3. Call your mobile carrier and add a PIN or passphrase to your account. This protects you against SIM swapping. Ask specifically for a “port freeze” or “account lock.” Not all carriers advertise this option, but most offer it.
4. Freeze your credit with all three bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. It is free and remains in place until you lift it. This prevents anyone from opening new credit in your name. Unfreeze temporarily only when you are actively applying for credit, then refreeze.
5. Never share your screen with anyone who contacts you first—not customer support, not tech support, not a bank representative. Legitimate companies do not initiate contact and then request screen access. Full stop.
6. Use a secure email provider for financial accounts. Gmail is convenient, but it is also a high-value target. Consider moving sensitive accounts to a provider like Proton Mail, which offers end-to-end encryption and does not rely on advertising-based data models.
7. If you hold cryptocurrency, move anything you are not actively trading to a cold wallet. A hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor keeps your private keys offline and out of reach of phishing attacks, exchange hacks, and account takeovers.
8. Google yourself. Seriously. Check what data brokers have published about you—your address, phone number, family members, email. Sites like Spokeo, Whitepages, and BeenVerified aggregate this information and sell it. You can opt out of each one or use a service like DeleteMe to automate removal.
9. Trust the call that feels slightly off. Women are often socialized to be polite, to give the benefit of the doubt, to avoid making things awkward by questioning someone who seems credible. That socialization is a security vulnerability. If something feels wrong, hang up. Call the institution directly using the number on its official website. Every time.
10. Talk about it. The silence around cybercrime is one of its most powerful tools. When we do not talk about what happened to us, others remain vulnerable. I am talking about it. I hope you will too.

The Bigger Picture

Women control a growing share of household wealth and investment capital. We run businesses, manage estates, hold crypto, trade markets, and make financial decisions that have real impact. That makes us targets—not because we are weak, but because we are powerful and often underprotected.

Cybersecurity is not just a tech issue. It is a women’s financial issue, and it deserves to be discussed in the same spaces where we talk about investing, negotiating, and building wealth.

I got hacked. I rebuilt. And I am now more protected, more informed, and more vocal than I was before it happened. None of that undoes the loss. But it does mean the loss was not only a loss—it was also an education I am handing directly to you.

Do not wait for your own version of my story to start taking this seriously. The steps above take an afternoon. What they protect can take a lifetime to build.

About the Author

Beth Silverberg is an AI adoption operator, strategic partnerships leader, and published author. With 15+ years in pharmaceutical sales and $50M+ in career revenue, she now builds AI-powered workflows and products. She is the author of The Adventures of Mattie Mae: Life Lessons Thru The Eyes of A Puppy (available on Amazon) and the founder of Word Idol, a global creative platform launching August 2026. Follow her on Instagram @IamBethRobyn and connect at linkedin.com/in/bethrobyn.