Meet Security Planner (Or: How to Help Your Non-Technical Friends and Family Stay Safer Online)

Abstract:

Some of the most intimate aspects of our lives unfold through devices and online services. However, there are big questions about whether the devices and services we use respect our privacy, and whether they adequately safeguard our information. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the challenge of staying safe online—and even more difficult to help secure your less technical friends and family members, especially when all of them have wildly different threat models.

Security Planner is meant to bridge the gap between security experts and the people seeking out information on how to keep themselves safer online. It is a free, easy-to-use guide offering accessible, personalized, prioritized, expert-reviewed advice that anyone can implement quickly and easily.

In this talk, we’ll discuss some of the benefits and drawbacks of current security guides online. We’ll talk about where Security Planner sits in the mix, and when it’s important to send people to other resources. And we’ll discuss what can be done when there are no buttons or switches to help users with digital security issues because of wider systemic failures.

This talk is meant to be interactive with ample time for suggestions, brainstorming, and Q+A.

Importance: Digital security isn’t where we need it to be for overall cyber readiness. It is a systemic failure that people need to follow personalized recommendations, or are so often in need of emergency resources due to digital security threats. In a just world, there would be more transparency, data collection would be opt-in, and products be safe as is and on demand. But that’s not where we’re at right now,
and the ability for people to make a plan and complete recommendations at their own pace is one of the few tools we have. I want to explain SP, and also brainstorm ways we as a community can help push things forward (and what SP can/should be doing better or differently).