Katya Seryabkina

Katya Seryabkina was born in Ukraine and lives in Krakow, Poland. She started hacking and exploring the digital world at 14, and everything she knows is self-taught, a curiosity that has since grown into proficiency in five programming languages: Python, JavaScript, C++, Ruby, and PHP.

For us she covers online privacy, VPN security and censorship circumvention, spyware detection, and phone tracking and monitoring apps. Growing up in Ukraine, she watched whole platforms disappear behind a government block overnight and saw how quickly people turned to VPNs. That left her with a lasting interest in which tools actually protect you and which only claim to.

Every app she reviews goes through the same rigorous hands-on process: she tests the features, the user interface, the ability to stay hidden, the security measures, and the overall effectiveness. Because that process never changes from one app to the next, neither does the standard, which is what keeps her verdicts unbiased.

She tests a VPN the way an attacker would look at it. She captures her own traffic to check what leaks outside the tunnel, checks for DNS and WebRTC exposure, and reads the privacy policy, ownership records, and any independent audits before she trusts a no-logs claim. On the road she uses hotel and airport Wi-Fi as a real-world test bench.

She is also a mother of two teenagers, and it shows in her work. Much of what she writes is practical guidance that helps parents protect their kids’ digital lives without guesswork.

Off the clock, Katya picks up new programming languages, attends security conferences, competes in ethical-hacking competitions, and travels with a camera.