Is Your Digital Front Door Unlocked?: Your Key to Privacy and Security in the Digital Age

If all the news you see and hear today about privacy and security leaves you scratching your head, then this book is for you. "Is Your Digital Front Door Unlocked?" explores the modern implications of our human nature: our inherent inclination to share our experiences, specifically on the internet. Our increasing reliance on technology to connect with others has us sharing far more information about ourselves than we even realize, and without a full understanding of the risks involved. While we’re posting innocent poolside pictures, we’re also creating highly personal information. And not just on social media. It happens by simply going about our day. Our computers that we use for work and play, our smartphones that are nearly always within arm’s reach, and our digital assistants that field household requests are capturing and sharing data about our habits, our interests, and even our comings and goings. Yet we largely don’t know it’s happening—or, for that matter, with whom we’re sharing and to what end. It’s time to understand how we’re creating all this personal information so we can control its flow and who has access to it. "Is Your Digital Front Door Unlocked?" takes an even-handed look at the most prevalent privacy and security challenges facing individuals and families today. It skips the scare tactics that can dominate the topic and illustrates the steps each of us can take to lead more private and more secure lives in an increasingly connected world. Since early 2011, I’ve been sharing my insights to a global consumer audience through blogs, television appearances, radio interviews, writing for print and online media, speaking engagements, and meeting with groups of parents, educators, and legislators. This book is an aggregation of the insights I’ve gathered over the years as the cybersecurity and privacy space has evolved and has demanded more and more from people to keep themselves safe. With the economic impact of cybercrime at an estimated $600 billion, the need for everyone to educate themselves on the topic has escalated from being important to being essential. There is urgency as we face the growth of malware (3 to 4 new malware are discovered every second), the collapse of privacy (as companies like Facebook share everything about us with companies we have never heard of), and the nonstop notices of security breaches (from companies informing consumers that their information has been exposed). I feel the time for this book is now—if not overdue. Because this book is for people in families of any size or structure, it looks at security and privacy across the stages of a family’s life and the roles each of us play in those stages (from birth to the time we eventually leave a digital legacy behind), along with important milestones and transitional periods in between. You’ll see how security and privacy are pertinent at every step of your digital journey and how specific age groups have concerns that are often unique to that stage of life. It’s also important to note that although I address the security and privacy activities typically found in a given life stage, your mileage will vary. There are no hard rules as to when on your digital journey you may experience something that needs tending to.Ultimately this book, like most things in life, is about choice. You can choose to roll the dice and hope you’re not either one of the hundreds of millions who are victims each year of phishing scams, ransomware attacks, and identity theft or among the handful of those who still fall for the Nigerian prince lottery scam. Or you can choose to embrace the guidelines outlined herein and make it orders of magnitude more difficult for a bad actor or cybercriminal to make a victim of you or your loved ones. That you have picked up this book tells me you’re well on your way to a safer, more private digital destiny and more enjoyable online experiences overall.