One of the families that has a personal cybersecurity contract with me is illustrative of how difficult it can be to get people to change their attitudes and behaviors with respect to security.
BACKGROUND
A financially comfortable family in Seattle has a six-month contract with me to work on their cybersecurity and information security. (The fact that they’re financially comfortable is relevant to the story; more on that below). Some things I’m doing with in-home visits, and some of it is done via remote login sessions while they watch. The service covers everything: Internet gateway hardening, computer, tablet, and smartphone security settings, help with 2FA setup, email evaluation, password management process review and improvement, Wi-Fi security, device encryption, and – the subject of today’s post – backups.
THE SITUATION
The wife has expressed considerable concern with backing up pictures from her phone. I’ve recommended offline backups in addition to online storage. I helped her shop online for external USB drives with sufficient storage capacity. She said she’d buy one, but then she canceled this week’s meeting to set it up. Why? Because she hasn’t gotten around to buying the storage device yet.
This isn’t a matter of not being able to afford it. She didn’t stall me because she’s embarrassed about the cost and she’s waiting until payday. No, it’s simply a comfort with the status quo, and the feeling that “it won’t happen to me.” It can be put off, and nothing bad will happen.
THE LESSON
Don’t put it off. It can happen to you. Do your backups.
#CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks
#cybersecurity #InformationSecurity
Bob Young /
npub1d5…9eu62
2025-04-17 18:12:11
Author Public Key
npub1d5mcrhz7v8ykwwc4sld0j5xdn4q8wrdt94ezewrmrpjmctxgzdwsw9eu62Published at
2025-04-17 18:12:11Event JSON
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