Review: Cyber Smart
Do you believe you’re not interesting or important enough to be targeted by a cybercriminal? Do you think your personal data doesn’t hold any value? Bart R. McDonough proves why those beliefs are wrong in his book Cyber Smart: Five Habits to Protect Your Family, Money, and Identity from Cyber Criminals.
McDonough, CEO and Founder of Agio, is a cybersecurity expert, speaker and author with more than 20 years of experience in the field, and this is his debut book.
Cyber Smart: Five Habits to Protect Your Family, Money, and Identity from Cyber Criminals
He starts by debunking the most common cybersecurity myths, like the one mentioned above. Whether you like it or not, you are important, and your data is important. Also, everything has a price.
McDonough explains all the possible risks and threats you could encounter in a connected world, who are the bad actors, what their goals are and, most importantly, their attack methods.
The author presents five golden rules – or, as he calls them, “Brilliance in the Basics” habits – you should be complying with to maintain a good cybersecurity hygiene: update your devices, enable two-factor authentication, use a password manager, install and update antivirus software, and back up your data.
The second half of the book gives you detailed and specific recommendations on how to protect your:
- Identity
- Children
- Money
- Files
- Social media
- Website access and passwords
- Computer
- Mobile devices
- Home Wi-Fi
- IoT devices
- Your information when traveling.
McDonough doesn’t use scare tactics that could possibly make you want to forego all technology and go live in the woods. On the contrary, he wants you to embrace it and understand that even if the online world poses so many threats, there’s a lot you can do to protect yourself.
Who is this book for?
You don’t need to be a cybersecurity professional to understand this book. Its language is simple and it offers many comprehensible everyday examples and detailed tips. It’s a book you should definitely have in your home library, also for future reference.
The author has a very clear message: don’t just sit back and hope bad actors will pass you over. Be proactive and take all the possible and necessary steps to secure your data and your devices.