cyber Security for the everyday Cat

Written By catalyst cat

If you have found yourself here, it’s likely because you are one of my framily (friends + family), or a framily member of my framily. Welcome! These are the basic tools I find essential to integrate into your devices to ensure your security, along with easy steps to set everything up.

This post might be for you if

  • Rotate through 3 to 5 passwords at any given time

  • Use pet names in your passwords

  • Change your password every 90 days and you default to winter2022! Or just keep adding ! Or 1’s every 90 days 

  • Have had your passwords leaked and are asking, “what do I do now?”

 

A little background

When logging into a couple of friend’s wifi networks, I saw the patterns listed in the “This Post Might be for You if…” section. I asked my friends about their password practices and realized most were trying to find the simplest bypass to password hurdles they could remember. In my day job, I’ve seen attackers exploit these same password patterns and started to worry about those I care about. I aggressively stressed the importance of changing their practices and explained the risk. Months later, no changes. After some reflection I realized this is not surprising, I had the same password patterns before I went into the Cyber Security field. We all want to have good habits but the topic of cyber security to a person not in tech is overwhelming. If we are being honest, it is an overwhelming topic for people in tech too. Fortunately, a person does not have to understand security to be secure. 

For an everyday cat to be secure, I suggest baking security into your everyday lifestyle in how you interact with technology. Specifically, your phone, computer, & accounts on these devices. The goal of this post is to make this a no-brainer change that is an effortless characteristic of your everyday lifestyle.

If you find yourself here, we have met in person and I’ve given you my spiel on how important doing something over nothing is. For those that are new, this post will provide a couple of tools to integrate into your lifestyle for you to become more secure. These might start off a bit clunky but will ultimately save you time and most importantly, give you peace of mind. 

 

Start Here

 

Want a ⭐️?

  • Ad-blocker extensions for all browsers (try to only install these from reputable sites and download from the official marketplace)

  • VPN + Firewall for phone and desktop (VPNs explained, comparison chart)

    Note: the comparison chart is maintained by the community but originally published by The One Privacy Guy

  • Phone spam blocker - Robo-killer

 

The reward

  • You will only have to remember one or two long passwords (password manager, 2 factor authentication) 

  • You don’t have to get a ton of texts to your phone for 2FA

  • If a website is compromised, your other websites are safe because each site has a different password (password manager)

  • Easy to generate a new password meeting password criteria without having to remember it (password manager) 

  • Annoying popup ads on a website is blocked (adblocker)

  • Spam calls are filtered (robokiller)

 

Disclaimer!

Think of security like the common cold, there is no foolproof cure but good hygiene guards against it. This list is equivalent to washing your hands and brushing your teeth. Also, I receive no kickbacks for anything recommended here.

If helpful, please 👍, ❤️, or comment on the resources linked here that others have worked hard to provide. Kindness is one of our greatest gifts we never can run out of and never tire of receiving.

 

I 😻 feedback. Let me know how I can make this post more useful.

 
catalyst cat
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