What’s The Best Cybersecurity Advice For The General Public?

Over the summer, we attended a fantastic arts festival and noticed a booth staffed by local members of Rotary International. I’m not a member of Rotary, but the banner they displayed really got my attention. It was a list of Rotary Values. Reading it, I thought “those are my values, personally and professionally — that’s what we do in medical research every day.”

And thinking a bit more, those values apply to cybersecurity advice, too.

How should we “filter” cybersecurity advice?

Before hitting publish, any cybersecurity advice we publicly post has to pass through this filter:

• Is It Factual?

• Is It Harmful?

• Is It Useful?

• Is It Actionable? or

• Does It Provide Helpful Context?

• Is It Legal / Moral / Ethical?

And a bonus point:

• Is it funny or entertaining?

“What’s the best cybersecurity advice I can follow today?”

It’s less complicated than you might think, since mastering The Basics can go a long way toward keeping you safe online. They are:

✔ Know The Basics — Understand how the world has changed, and what you can do about it.
✔ Modern Passwords — Create and use strong, unique, Modern Passwords for each online account.
✔ Password Manager — Use a high-quality Password Manager to create, remember and type the passwords for your online accounts.
✔ Diceware Passphrase — Craft and use a Diceware Passphrase to lock down your Password Manager.
✔ Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) — Implement MFA for each online account that offers it.

There are no guarantees in life. But fortunately, these 5 foundational building blocks are proven to work extremely well. You can massively stack the deck in your favor by intelligently adding each one to your online experience.

This advice comes straight from The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), so you know it’s reliable.

First time reading Digital Kleptos™?

Our gift for you this Holiday Season (and beyond) is our pledge to prioritize accurate, useful and actionable advice to help you stay safer online. While we focus a lot on The Basics, we also occasionally provide useful info about trending topics in cybersecurity and privacy.

Every Tuesday, our goal is to provide you with:

• Up-to-date information about what can go wrong when using the Internet.

• Useful, actionable advice you can use to keep yourself and your family safer online.

• Thoughtful cybersecurity analysis — sometimes from a very different point of view.

• Impactful cybersecurity stories that appeared in mainstream media, perfect for persuasively engaging non-technical staff, family or friends.

• If you’re a cyber newbie, you’ll benefit from bite-sized, easily digestible advice.

• If you’re a cyber pro, you’ll find different ways to describe cyber issues using words, phrases and images more likely to resonate with typical consumers. This will help build a bridge between the technical folks and the rest of us.

If you think we’ve missed the mark somehow, please feel free to let us know. We want to correct or update anything that’s not factual or helpful.

Thanks again for the past Half Year 🎉

Digital Kleptos™ is off to a great start, and we’re thrilled you’re along with us for the adventure!

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Weekly resources to help keep you safer online — protecting you from hackers, online scammers, and other Digital Kleptomaniacs™.

No spam. No selling your email. Just factual, actionable information once a week, from people who truly care about online security.  You can unsubscribe any time — but we hope you’ll want to stay with us on this journey.

Cybersecurity is a modern form of wealth, and you deserve to keep what you've earned.

Looking forward to connecting again next week.

— Anthony Collette

Digital Kleptos™