Digital Self-Defense

Kem humbly shares his "epic fail" (his words, not mine!) story so we can all learn from his mistakes. As the story opens, Kem searches for a nice picture of Wellington, New Zealand for his wife's computer wallpaper.

As he was speeding along, he accidentally clicked yes on a popup he shouldn't have, giving some malware backdoor access to his computer. As it tried to spread farther through another popup, he realized his mistake.

Thankfully at that point with just a few minutes of effort, he was able to kick the malware out and shut the door. I love happy endings! A couple of days later, he took the time to document his story here to share with the world. Thank you, Kem!

This was a powerful reminder that we all need to take time to Read the Signs. When we're driving, road signs are vital to our safety.

On a computer, signs are also vital to our safety, including popups. We need to take time to learn what the signs mean so we can avoid the hidden dangers.

Take time to read popups, and especially learn what they mean so you can respond to them wisely. If you don't know what one means, please come to the forum and ask!

Kem's story with all the details

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Makani Leaks His Own Data

What's the first skill we need to stay safe shopping online?

What are the two buckets of bad shopping websites?

What are the two buckets of phishing websites?

What is the first item on our "safe website" checklist?

A vital skill in staying safe while shopping online is knowing how to tell if a website is safe. You need to be on the watch for not only phishing sites, but scam websites too.

We usually think of phishing websites as clones of specific websites, like gmail, where the objective is to steal your password. But with shopping, the objective of a phishing website is to gather as much personal information about you as they can, including your credit card.

The first question on our safe website checklist is this: is the website less than a year old? If the answer to that question is yes, my advice is: run away, do not shop there, do not even browse there.

Visit linklantern.com, put in any website, then look for the answer to the first item on our checklist:

is the website less than a year old?

Link Lantern: shine a light on an unfamiliar website

Find out when a website was registered

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What is a Security Stack

What are the 6 layers in the Bulletproof Stack Formula?

How are they grouped?

What are the most neglected layers?

There are 6 types of layers we can review to help us build a Security Stack. They help us build redundancy into our Security Stack. Yes, that's a good thing! We want as many layers of defense as we can to keep the bad guys out.

We divide the 6 layers into 2 groups of 3. We have the solo layers: knowledge, skills, and habits.

And the team layers: people, tools and services.

Help me build a system that is going to work for you by sharing your thoughts. What layer do you feel like you depend on the most? The layers are: knowledge, skills, habits, people, tools, and services. Let me know on the forum.

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Seven Critical Router Security Settings

How DDoS Attacks Affect You

What are the 5 questions in the Bulletproof Stack Formula?

How do they help us?

There are 5 questions we can ask to help us build a Security Stack. These questions help to ensure that our Security Stack is relevant.

This means there is a legitimate threat that I care about, and I'm willing and able to take the steps necessary to defend myself.

The 5 questions can be remembered with 5 words: assets, threats, risks, options, tradeoffs.

Assets: What am I protecting?

Threats: What are the threats?

Risks: What are the risks?

Options: What are my options for defense?

Tradeoffs: What tradeoffs am I willing to make?

Help me build a system that is going to work for you. How do you feel about the 5 words I chose to represent each question: assets, threats, risks, options, tradeoffs. Are there any you would replace? Let me know on the forum.

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Our Super Chatty Devices

What are the 4 phases in a Security Stack?

How do they help us?

Which one is the most important?

The 4 phases of a Security Stack are: Learn, Prevent, Detect, and Repair. This parallels how an attack affects us over time.

We want to Learn about an attack before it hits us, and ideally Prevent it from succeeding. But just in case it does get past our defenses, we want to be sure we can Detect the attack and Repair the damage done.

Please build this awesome system together with me by sharing your thoughts. Are the 4 phases - learn, prevent, detect, repair - sufficiently simple and clear to you? Let me know on the forum.

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4 Strategies for Picking Your Priorities

What does Makani love building?

What is a Security Stack?

How do you build one?

What is the twist on our usual Call-to-Actions for this series?

A Security Stack is a piece of your Personal Security Plan focused on a specific area. It is comprised of layers of protection that work together to keep you safe.

You build a Security Stack using The Bulletproof Stack Formula, which consists of 4 Phases, 5 Questions, and 6 Layers.

Please build this awesome system together with me by sharing your thoughts. Does the idea of a "Security Stack" make sense to you so far? Let me know on the forum.

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What is the 4P formula?

What are 4 strategies for picking your priorities?

What is the theme of our new series of episodes?

How many episodes do you think it will take Makani to finish it?

There's a lot of ways you can improve your online security. But where should you begin? It can be a daunting question to answer.

Picking your priorities goes a long way. There are 4 simple strategies you can use to get started: activity, threat, value, and speed.

You could prioritize by activity: something you spend a lot of time doing or that makes you nervous.

You could prioritize by threat: a common threat like phishing, or a less common threat relevant to your situation.

You could prioritize by value: maybe your highest priority is keeping your retirement fund safe.

You could prioritize by speed: you want protection, but you are super busy and need to be able to do so quickly and efficiently.

Pick the strategy you want to use to kick off your personal security plan. Then come share your pick on the forum.

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Unique Email Addresses

Troy Hunt Phished

Troy Hunt Part 2

Why is Makani sharing his story?

What is a domain name registrar?

What is whois data?

How can it help me stay safe online?

A domain name is what we think of as a website - facebook.com or makanimason.com. In order to have your own domain, you need to pay some money and share some personal information with a domain name registrar.

This information is then publicly available, unless you choose to make it private through your registrar. Unfortunately for some domains, like ones that end in .us - keeping this information private is prohibited.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize this and registered a .us domain, sharing publicly my name, email address, and phone number. It was a great invitation for hackers and scammers to harass me.

Share your story of being hacked, scammed or tricked online. Give someone the gift of learning from your experience.

Link Lantern: shine a light on an unfamiliar website

Find out when a website was registered

Hover: a simple trustworthy domain registrar

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Episode 62, Even a Security Expert Can Get Phished (Troy Hunt, Part 1)

Episode 17, Eliminating Email Exhaustion - Part 2 - Unique Emails

Episode 42, Website and Email Filtering, Part 3: Email Friends

Who is to blame for Troy getting phished?

How can you reliably tell who sent you an email?

How can you cut down your email spam?

What are two major flaws in our email system?

I don't blame Troy for getting phished. I blame the serious flaw in our archaic email system.

Anybody can send anyone an email and you have no idea who it's from. No wonder phishing is a problem.

You can't fix the system, but if you're willing to take action, you can greatly compensate for that flaw.

Take one small step in strengthening your protections against phishing.

Maybe listen to episode 17 about unique email addresses.

Or episode 42 on how to add a friend system to your email inbox.

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Who is Troy Hunt?

How did he get phished?

What are some lessons we can learn from his story?

Who will we be inviting as a guest to the podcast?

Troy Hunt, a security expert, got phished. He clicked a link in an email, and entered his password into a fake website.

The hackers logged into his Mailchimp account that he uses to send his email newsletter. They stole the email addresses of all his subscribers.

Troy was humble and brave enough to share his story with us so we can learn. Thank you, Troy!

Share your story of being hacked, scammed or tricked online. Give someone the gift of learning from your experience.

About Troy Hunt

Troy Hunt, Security Expert, Gets Phished

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