A Visual Summary of “Don’t Get Hacked Grandpa!”

My stick figure ability being put to the test

Don’t Get Hacked, Kids!

I plan to work on a visual telling of my self published book (working title, Don’t Get Hacked Kids!), but wanted to see if even the storyboard was useful to folks as a visual summary. I’ll lay each out with a sentence or two explanation. Pardon my drawing ability (or lack thereof).

Diet and Exercise

I like to think of good personal cyber security like Diet and Exercise.

• Diet: Keeping out the bad things and only eating the good stuff
• Exercise: Working hard to build up systems that make it hard to compromise your accounts

Gluten free diet? just kidding it’s Google/Facebook and secured things above, bad things at the bottom like phishing and hacking

A password manager in one hand, multi factor in the other, and a strong master password as a treadmil

Heroes and Villains

• Tech Buddy: Helps you navigate all the tools and avoid getting hacked
• Phisher: Baits you with email into giving away information/money
• Social Engineer: Tricks you into believing they’re someone of authority to get into your account/machine
• Hacker: Designs malware (bad software) to hack into systems

Your tech hero! Only one call/ door knock away. Hopefully a close friend or family member.

People with suspicious or seemingly OK emails that lead you down a bad path.

A tricky person who pretends to be IT support or an authority figure, to gain access to your computer/phone/account

People in hoodies (which I can’t draw) that write software that can infect your computer or phone

What to Do?

• If confronted with a suspicious email, ask your tech buddy! (Also, after confirming, send to spam/report)
• If confronted with something like a social engineer, hang up, ask your tech buddy and bring them around to see if it’s legitimate

A kid asking for help from their tech buddy about a phishing email, sending a picture of it

A kid asking their tech buddy about a tricky/unknown person who says they’re IT support, wants to share their screen

The Damage Hackers can Wreak

• Account compromises let hackers use leaked/ stolen passwords to access accounts in one or more systems
• Data breaches allow hackers or other individuals to commit identity theft and do things like open accounts/credit cards on a person’s behalf

The Tools to Avoid Being Hacked: Password Manager

• Password Manager: A way to store a bunch of unique, generated passwords (or better yet, passkeys)
• The best password managers are Bitwarden (Free/Paid), 1Password (Paid), Keeper (Paid) and Dashlane (Paid)
• A strong master password (long, but you can memorize it, and hard to guess) is a must for a Password Manager. You should also use Multifactor Authentication

A kid overwhelmed by memorizing different passwords instead uses a password manager

Auto generating passwords prevents hackers from reusing leaked passwords to gain access, and makes them hard to guess

A nice, memorizable, but long password to secure your password manager

Instead of autogenerating passwords, you can use passkeys, which are software versions of Universal 2 Factor (i.e., crytographic keys). The above password managers can store them, as can personal devices.

The Tools to Avoid Being Hacked: Multifactor Authentication (MFA)

• Multifactor authentication explained: like a doorman or a face scanner, another factor for accessing an account
• The best options for MFA are Yubikeys (physical USB keys), followed by biometrics. Authenticator apps are a good 3rd place, with email and text codes rounding out 4th and 5th place.
• Print out backup codes for MFA sites, in case you lose your other factor! Or keep them stored as secure notes in a password manager

A doorman, an example of another factor than just a password/passkey

A face scanner, another example of another factor than a password, one that is also biometric

In rank order of security level: 1. Yubikey, 2. FaceID/Thumbprint, 3. Authenticator App codes, 4. Email Codes, 5. Text Codes

Print out or securely store your backup codes!

Hopefully this set of visuals will help with some of these concepts. If you have any thoughts about the format or things are unclear, please let me know!