Privacy Protectors Spotlight: Bailey Marshall

In the latest installment of our Privacy Protectors Spotlight series, we are excited to feature ethical hacker and educator Bailey Marshall.

Bailey Marshall is a hacker, cybersecurity educator and consultant whose technical expertise spans penetration testing, red-team engagements, dark web investigations, open-source intelligence (OSINT), and proactive security strategy. She is the Founder and Principal Consultant of The Security Rex, a platform where she produces approachable, high-impact cybersecurity content and provides consulting services to businesses. In 2024, she co-founded Future Proof Security, an initiative dedicated to equipping parents, educators, and communities with tools to protect youth from online threats.

Background

A U.S. Army veteran with over six years of active-duty service, Bailey’s introduction to the field came unexpectedly—through an Army assignment in IT and cybersecurity. Though she originally studied psychology and planned to pursue medicine, she found herself drawn to the problem-solving and human-centered challenges of security. After earning her Security+ certification and later a Master’s degree in cybersecurity, she fully embraced the field, bringing a psychological lens to cyber threat intelligence and offensive security operations.

Since leaving the military, Bailey has charted an impressive path across both public and private sectors. She served as a Senior Consultant at Mandiant, where she contributed to purple teaming, OSINT, and incident response engagements. She currently supports Google’s public sector clients as a Security Customer Engineer and serves as Director of Innovation and Program Management at Applied Technology Academy, where she previously led curriculum development and red team training as a Senior Instructor. She also shares her expertise as adjunct cybersecurity faculty at Southern New Hampshire University.

Bailey’s work is grounded in the belief that cybersecurity education should be accessible to everyone. Her hands-on experience in both offensive security and threat intelligence informs her advocacy for stronger privacy and proactive security practices. Whether she’s mentoring up-and-coming professionals, helping businesses enhance their security posture, creating free educational content, or helping families understand digital safety, Bailey is driven by a mission to serve, educate, and equip others with the means to protect themselves.

The Security Rex

Bailey actively works to remove those barriers. Through sharing toolkits for newcomers or hands-on challenges for professionals—like her March 2025 exercise on writing better pentest reports—her goal is to empower others with the skills and understanding they need to thrive in cybersecurity.

“Why do I do free and low-cost training when others are selling theirs based on empty promises and often for a fortune?” she asked in a recent post. “Because everyone deserves access to education. Period.”

That ethos runs through everything she shares under The Security Rex name—from technical walkthroughs to down-to-earth career advice for those just getting started.

The Security Rex also offers consulting services designed to help organizations take ownership of their internal cybersecurity programs. Bailey works directly with businesses to build sustainable, self-managed security capabilities. Her goal is to transfer knowledge, implement streamlined processes, and enable teams to maintain and mature their security posture independently. Services include proactive security assessments, tailored incident readiness plans, and custom cybersecurity awareness training for employees—complete with realistic phishing and social engineering simulations based on current attack patterns.

Through her consulting, Bailey helps organizations anticipate threats, build strategic defenses, and foster a culture where every employee becomes part of the security solution. Her approach is holistic, practical, and rooted in ethical standards—ensuring that all testing, training, and recommendations are conducted with transparency and integrity.

The name Security Rex carries a personal meaning. In a post reflecting on the origins of the brand, Bailey introduced the real “Rex”—a cat she adopted eight years earlier, fresh out of university.

Future Proof Security

As part of her mission to protect others and make cybersecurity accessible, Marshall is actively engaged in promoting privacy and safety for children. She co-founded Future Proof Security with fellow Army veteran and cybersecurity professional Jennifer Funk, a platform focused on protecting children online and empowering parents and educators with the knowledge they need to navigate digital threats. 

Seeing firsthand the growing digital threats targeting children and families, Bailey and Jennifer recognized that many parents and educators lacked the resources and knowledge to keep their families safe.

By delivering accessible and engaging cybersecurity education, Future Proof Security aims to create a future where every child can explore the internet safely, confidently, and responsibly. The organization promotes digital literacy and proactive security habits to help build a safer online environment for the next generation, educating families in ways that are practical, relatable, and empowering.

Through Future Proof Security, Marshall and Funk provide factual data and guidance on issues such as cyberbullying, online stalking, child identity theft, and sextortion, alongside practical steps like parental controls and open communication strategies. 

Future Proofed: Empowering Young Minds for a Secure Digital World | BSides Greenville [2024]

As part of this effort, Future Proof Security offers a free guide entitled “10 Steps to Online Safety for Kids” and other articles to help parents understand and mitigate the risks children face in today’s online world.

“Your kids aren’t safe online. Period. Future Proof Security isn’t here to tell you to keep your children off social media. Nor to tell you to allow them full reign. We are simply here to empower parents to be decisive. We do this through cybersecurity education. Factual data. Relevant use cases. Technical expertise in this digital age.” –(2) Post | LinkedIn

Future Proof offers a range of services tailored to foster digital literacy and proactive security habits to counter the increasing online threats faced by children:

• Digital Safety Training: Empowers parents with essential skills to safeguard their families from online threats, promoting a secure digital environment at home.
• Community Engagement: Provides a platform for like-minded parents to connect, share cybersecurity tips, and support each other in creating safe digital spaces for families.
• Digital Footprint Management: Assists families in assessing, cleaning up, and protecting their online presence, ensuring privacy and cultivating a positive digital reputation.
• School Cybersecurity Awareness: Educates teachers, parents, and students on best practices for online safety, fostering a secure and responsible digital learning environment.

In addition to these services, Future Proof actively engages with the community through events and webinars. For instance, their webinar titled “Protect Their Tomorrow, Secure Them Today” provides actionable insights for building a safer online environment for children.

Cybersecurity tips from Bailey Marshall

In addition to the work she does with The Security Rex and Future Proof Security, Bailey regularly shares practical cybersecurity advice on social media. Through short-form videos, pithy posts, and free educational tools, she empowers people to understand the risks around them—and take simple, effective steps to protect themselves and their families. What follows is a collection of practical tips and insights she’s shared across topics like data privacy, OSINT, phishing, and child safety online.

SEO Poisoning and GootLoader

In a recent LinkedIn post, Bailey highlighted a creative lure used in a GootLoader malware campaign—weaponized cat content. GootLoader is a malware delivery framework known for using SEO poisoning, a tactic where attackers manipulate search engine results to promote malicious websites. When users search for something seemingly harmless, such as ‘are bengal cats legal in australia?’, they might be led to a compromised website that prompts them to download a dangerous file. 

By turning these manipulated search results into believable traps, GootLoader can infect unsuspecting users with malware or ransomware, and otherwise wreak havoc. Bailey uses short-form videos to break down technical threats like this in a relatable, attention-grabbing way—helping everyday users understand how even innocent-looking content can become a serious cybersecurity risk, and also what people can do to protect themselves.

Understanding password vulnerabilities

In another of her educational posts, Bailey shared a password-strength visualization tool that shows how long different types of passwords would take to crack under a brute force attack. What looks like a strong password—like b4il3y!—actually takes just 22 seconds to crack with the right tools. Her advice is to never enter your real passwords into these sites, but use them to experiment and better understand password vulnerabilities. As Bailey put it, “Strong security begins with a well-rounded understanding of all vulnerabilities.”

Preventing device hacking

Even when you’re not actively using your devices, their wireless features can leave you exposed. One of Bailey’s simplest and most effective tips is to turn them off when they’re not in use:

“If you don’t want your personal devices hacked, turn off your bluetooth, turn off your wi-fi, make sure that those settings are off when they’re not in use. And yes, these devices can be hacked even if they’re not connected to anything. If you’re not using it, just turn it off.”

How easy it is to track down most people

In another post, Bailey outlines the steps she takes when tracking down a person of interest in order to prompt people to consider their own exposure:

“I love finding people. Flexing my hacking muscles in a psychological way. I WAS a psych major after all. Some steps I take when looking for a person of interest:

1. Search social media (all outlets)

2. Find all data I can: pictures, usernames

3. Reverse search pictures or hunt for reused names

4. Trace relationships to family and friends and dig in further

5. Scour data leaks for information that can add up all of what was found

Just knowing how easy it is to find anyone online is the first step to securing your privacy.”

Bailey’s OSINT sources

In a longer post on this theme, Bailey shared a list of her favorite tools for ethical OSINT, inviting others to “stalk a friend today” as a way to explore how much information is publicly accessible. Her go-to resources span categories like phone number and email lookups, social media discovery, data brokers, and reverse image searches. It’s a clear, practical glimpse into how OSINT is done in real life, and how everyday data sources can be used to uncover surprisingly detailed profiles.

“Open-source intelligence is where you basically find out everything you can about an individual, a company, or an organization, through what you can find on the internet. When I have an individual that I’m specifically interested in, I’ll typically start by just doing a quick Google search of their name and if I know the location that they’re from, I’ll add that in as well. Oftentimes you can find things like Whitepages and even Spokeo.  A lot of times they also have information about their family and known associates. Then I will follow up with this person’s social media profile…A lot of times it’s locked down and private so I move on to the family. When I have information about family members, I can typically find exactly what I need to know about people.” 

“Stalk a friend today!

Here are a few of my favorite tools to do some (ethical) OSINT.

• Phone Numbers Lookup
• PhoneInfoga
• NumLookup
• Spy Dialer
• Truecaller
• Spokeo
• Email Address Lookup
• Have I Been Pwnd?
• EmailHarvester
• EmailRep. io
• MailTester
• PhishTank
• Hunter. io
• Social Media Accounts
• Social Searcher
• Social-Analyzer
• Sherlock
• Maltego
• IDCrawl
• Image Searches
• FotoForensics
• Image Raider
• ExifTool
• Yandex
• TinEye”

Minimizing digital exposure

In one of her most direct reminders about personal safety online, Bailey urges people to take data privacy seriously—no matter what platforms they use. She breaks down practical, easy-to-follow tips for minimizing digital exposure, from limiting app permissions to avoiding location sharing and protecting children’s images.

“No matter what platforms you’re on,

No matter where you post your photos:

DATA PRIVACY STILL MATTERS EVERYWHERE!

The more you can do to protect yourself, the better.

Here are a few things I recommend to people:

1. Don’t give apps access to your full camera roll

2. Use the App Store to download trusted applications

3. Use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication

4. Don’t post your location or check in to any establishments

5. If you still want to post your location, delay this to well after you’ve left

6. Don’t post images of the exterior of your home or in your neighborhoods

7. Use private accounts where possible, and do not share personal information

And, as always- do not share images of your children online.

Opt-out to any organizations that may use their pictures for promotional purposes.

I guarantee you, they will understand.”

“Reality is, your life can be changed simply by posting too much personal information. Think about it the next time you want to say or share something online.”

Protecting against Phishing

In her usual mix of humor and straight talk, Bailey offers practical advice for spotting phishing attempts—urging people to slow down, read carefully, and trust their instincts before clicking.

“Don’t you just love it when people try to scam you? No? Samesies. But hey, we’re all human.

When you receive an unknown message, do the following:

– Stop

– Breathe

– Re-read it

– Grammar bad?

– Spelling messy?

– Threatening claims?

– Links from another planet?

– Phone number contains hieroglyphics?

Slow down and take a moment before acting. You should probably do that in every part of life.”

Bailey has also designed a free course titled Outsmart Phishers: Understanding Email Headers, created to help anyone—regardless of technical background—spot and stop phishing attempts. The course walks learners through the different types of phishing scams and how victims typically fall for them, then gradually introduces more technical tools like email header analysis and metadata review.

It covers how to recognize phishing across formats, from language cues and urgency triggers to generative AI–based attacks. Learners are shown how attackers craft convincing scams and what response steps can be taken. True to Bailey’s educational approach, the course is flexible: it offers value whether someone wants just the basics or a deeper dive into technical email analysis.

Outsmart Phishers reflects Bailey’s belief that you don’t need to be a tech expert to stay safe—you just need the right knowledge, delivered in a way that makes sense.

The free course is available here: Outsmart Phishers: Understanding Email Headers

On digital footprints and your child’s online presence

In a post focused on children’s online safety, Bailey breaks down the concept of a digital footprint in terms every parent can understand. She outlines five simple but eye-opening truths about kids’ online activity—reminding families that every post, comment, and photo contributes to a lasting online profile, whether we realize it or not.

“5 things you need to know about your child’s online activity. Ever heard of the digital footprint? This is just a complete picture of all the online activity about anyone. Pictures, videos, audio, posts and comments.

1. We don’t know everything about the internet

2. You don’t know the impact of your posts

3. Innocent posts can have hidden dangers

4. You have a responsibility to control it

5. Just try Googling yourself to start!

Consider how all of the activity you, your family, and your child engaged with online pieces together into a reflection of them.”

Communication as the secret to children’s online safety

Bailey emphasizes that protecting kids online starts with how we talk to them. In a post tied to Safer Internet Day, she urges parents to go beyond surface-level talks and engage with empathy and curiosity.

“You wanna know the secret to your child’s safety? Communication. And you might think you already talk enough. But are you talking right? Here are a few things that don’t come naturally:

Building confidence and empathy with bullies

Asking questions about their online friends

Being engaged by their interests

Talking about intimate images

These are actionable things you can talk to RIGHT NOW! Let’s join together and make the internet a safer place.”

Bailey’s humor

One of the things that sets Bailey Marshall apart in the cybersecurity world is her sense of humor. While her technical expertise runs deep, she believes that learning—especially in a field as complex and high-stakes as cybersecurity—should be fun. As she put it in one post:

“Making our world more secure is serious. Enabling others to enjoy the cause is not.”

Bailey brings Skibidi, personality, and memes into conversations about phishing, burnout, and OSINT as tools for connection. Her videos are sharp, self-aware, and often hilarious, whether she’s playfully roasting corporate meetings, mimicking hacker stereotypes, or reminding people to take breaks before they break down. 

Here are a few examples that showcase her signature style of humor:

• “We’ve all got ’em, we all love ’em: hacker faces.”
  
• “Tech is draining—don’t forget to take a break.”
  
• “It’s meetings. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.”
  
• “Are any of my friends out there surviving through the flood?”
  
• “The human in me wants to be included, but the ADHD in me is never getting this project done.”

Conclusion

Bailey Marshall is reshaping what cybersecurity education looks like—whether she’s guiding parents through digital parenting challenges, consulting organizations on proactive cybersecurity, mentoring the next generation, offering privacy and security tips, or bringing laughter and accessibility to the field. Her work is serious, and her delivery strikes a remarkable balance between poignant, lighthearted, and strategic.

Bailey is continuing to grow The Security Rex and Future Proof Security, teach young people about cybersecurity, and support small businesses and communities. At the heart of her work is a mission to educate and protect:

“Seeing someone who didn’t understand how vulnerable they were or how things worked, then seeing it click in their minds whether that’s through the education or the consulting side, I feel like I am directly impacting someone’s journey and someone’s business. That’s why I do what I do because I like helping people.” –womaninredpresents – Twitch

At Optery, we are greatly inspired by Bailey Marshall’s work and are happy to spotlight her for her exceptional contributions to privacy protection.

Connect with Bailey Marshall and her work:

• Bailey Marshall on LinkedIn
• The Security Rex website
• The Security Rex on LinkedIn
• The Security Rex on YouTube
• The Security Rex on TikTok
• Future Proof Security website
• Future Proof Security on LinkedIn
• Future Proof Security on Facebook
• Future Proof Security on TikTok

Stay tuned for more features in our Privacy Protectors Spotlight series and follow Optery’s blog for further insights on safeguarding your personal information.