Honest Advice About Cybersecurity Awareness Courses With No “Mr. Robot” Spoilers
?? Donald Allen ????
#StandWithUkraine | Multiple Times Best-selling Author. Keynote Speaker. Top 50 Global Thought Leader & Influencer on Cybersecurity, Marketing, Startups, EdTech by Thinkers360. Founder & CEO, dacybersecurity.com
I am not a fan of undermining works of others, or saying that all our work is in vain because I bump into such objections all the time, but…
"Cybersecurity awareness courses as we know them today should relieve a complete makeover."
Donald Allen
It’s not even about the tone we talk to our users, but the format we cater the actual content in. Like, two-hour lectures?
Forget about it!
It’s all about the engagement. If people won’t care for the best course out there, the quality of research and all that work would mean nothing, as all the guys and girls would forget everything five minutes later. That’s why I’m suggesting the easiest, cheapest and most effective cybersecurity awareness training out there:
The TV show called "Mr. Robot."
One of the few adequate shows where hackers don’t wear ski masks when "brute forcing into iframe to spoof some macros cookies." (I picked up on these jokes on Reddit.)
I think everyone who reads this post now already got the joke, but for the uninitiated, I’ll clarify - the phrase above is complete and utter nonsense, just like most movies about hacker masters.
Mr. Robot is a pleasant surprise because it shows people enough about cybersecurity to remember and most importantly, CARE.
The guys behind this show are in cahoots with actual cybersecurity professionals. There are some little mistakes, but overall the quality of information about cybersecurity is OK.
In my opinion, TV shows are great because of their format...
Every week you get a new 30-40 minute episode that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I enjoy the show because its twists and turns are second to none, and I’m scratching furiously to finally binge through the final season.
Ok, let’s wrap it up...
Cybersecurity can be exciting!
It can be dramatic!
It can be enjoyably nerve-provoking!
Shout out to Mr. Robot for doing some research, shout out to Black Mirror for showing us how technology can blow up in our face.
If you want to dive deeper into this bottomless ocean of cybersecurity, I’ll go on a limb and shill my "The Art of Email Security" book.
At least in terms of research depth, it’s up there with the more popular shows out there. Plus, from all the feedback I got from beta-readers, the word "boring" never hit my radar. I’ll take it!
"No hard teaching, lots of engaging material for security professionals and regular users alike.
"The Art Of Email Security" is a good mix of data, statistics, quotes, insights and recommendations for users.
I think that makes it appealing to a broad audience, which is smart as cybersecurity is a global issue. It puts human beings in focus and that makes it different from technical books you might have read before.
Will certainly promote it in my network, I think it will get some love."
Niels Trads Pedersen, Partner at Deloitte, former Business Unit Leader at IBM
"The Art of Email Security" will become available for sale in the coming weeks, but you can start reading it today, gratis:
What do you like the most about Mr. Robot? Who’s your favorite character and why? What’s your favorite episode so far?
Let’s talk about it spoiler-free in the comments down below.
Crypto trader, smart contract auditor, Full-Stack Developer, Cyber Security, Independent Analyst, Quantitative Researcher, bug bounty hunter, DeFi degenerate high level strategy low level implementations specialist
5 年“Why’d you do it? ... What is it you were hoping to accomplish?” ... “... I wanted to save the world...” (Maxence Cyrin - where is my mind / pixies piano cover) My response every time I’m asked why I created a Maltego infinite loop transform machine...
Thought Leader and Cyber Security Transformation Executive
5 年Excellent article!
Technology architect, generalist and alternative energy enthusiast
5 年Mr. Robot is an awesome series, with a few throwbacks to 1980s technologies and movies, just for fun. It’s far less dated than my personal favourite, WarGames, which was made in the Cold War era of 1983, and shows a world with technologies, political realities and attitudes very different to today’s world. Yet, WarGames also introduced its viewers to hacking concepts like looking for written-down passwords, wiretapping, replay attacks, backdoors, a rather Jason Bourne-like approach to researching one’s target in a pre-WWW world - and even a bit of war dialling, in only about 2 hours. Compared to how Hollywood movies generally treat computer science, John Badham did a spectacular job with WarGames.
Currently looking for a new professional challenge.
5 年Very nice and informative post. I love Mr Robot. Cybersecurity conveys lost of fears in people's mind. Info sec is not glamorous and sexy for lots of people. So lots to do for us. Thank you for sharing.
CEO @ Berkeley Varitronics Systems | Cybersecurity Expert
5 年I agree ... it can be a chore to get the average person to sit down and watch/enjoy Mr. Robot and getting them to participate in security awareness can be tough. ?If you incentivize security awareness training you have a shot. ?