Monica Lewinsky wants cybersecurity pros to aid the vulnerable

Monica Lewinsky has a message for cybersecurity experts: Help protect vulnerable people from hackers.

On Wednesday, at the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco, Lewinsky made this plea while talking about cyberbullying to a crowd of hundreds of cybersecurity professionals. Though much of what she said came from a TED talk she originally gave in 2015, her message about the ways hacking can lead to public humiliation had a unique meaning for this crowd.

After all, these are the very people whose job it is to stop hackers from stealing sensitive personal information.

"Make people more aware of cybersecurity and how to protect themselves," Lewinsky told the crowd. "Particularly the young."

Lewinsky became a public figure in 1998 when her relationship with President Bill Clinton came to light. Transcripts and recordings of her phone calls with a co-worker, in which she discussed the affair, eventually became public. The first news of the relationship broke on the Drudge Report, something Lewinsky says makes her "patient zero" of an era when internet media can cause someone to lose their reputation instantaneously.

"This scandal was brought to you by the digital revolution," she said.

This phenomenon has only progressed, Lewinsky said. The internet empowers huge groups of people to target unlucky victims with humiliation, Lewinsky said, and many instances of cyberbullying involve hacked or secretly recorded photos, videos or audio becoming public. 

That's something that requires internet users to think before they click to view the digital representation of a private moment, Lewinsky said.

The Smartest Stuff: Innovators are thinking up new ways to make you, and the things around you, smarter.

Special Reports: CNET's in-depth features in one place.