Learning the digital basics

Welcome back, everyone. Nice to see you again. Please sit down, make yourself comfy, and have a cup of joe. You look more prepared to face what lies ahead of us. Good. That’s nice to see. :)

As you now know, cybersecurity is the practice of minimizing or eliminating intrusions into our digital affairs. That includes gaining access to our data, computers, and networks. In this column, when we speak of cybersecurity, we use the analogy of a home alarm system to help remind us of two basic truths:

• We can usually prevent most individuals from gaining access to our valuables with a bit of reasonable effort and expense.
• We usually can’t prevent those with the right tools and experience from bypassing even the most sophisticated alarm system.

So, rather than being afraid, we focus our efforts on the first of these truths. In our first installment, we suggested methods for securing the technology in our homes from digital intrusions. But what about our online behavior? What vulnerabilities do we face when we work digitally, and what are the easiest ways to address them? Grab a shovel, kids: It’s time to dig in…

The 10 Commandments of Digital Security

Individuals and corporations with technical problems hire people like me to fix those technical problems. But here’s a secret that tech support professionals don’t usually share with “outsiders”: We sometimes use the code PEBCAK for certain problems. PEBCAK is an acronym…