Cyber in the Consumer World

My focus normally is on business to business (B2B) environments and “Enterprise” computing and cyber security. However, I’ve been known to venture into the consumer world from time to time. I wondered whether people would be interested in exploring with me what cyber security in the consumer world look like?

Last week I set on an adventure to see what “hacking” myself might look like. I’m thinking that there might be more to this than a fleeting glance at Instagram hacking and a bit of fun on twitter with alts. Maybe we need to look at consumer security and how/if we have got a good user experience in this space?

The reason I think it’s important, other than keeping family and friends safe, is that if we look at history and technology a key thing sticks in my mind:

Blackberry!

Blackberry was the business leader with a BES you had MDM, Encryption, remote wipe, and all kinds of “killer” features. We all wanted a blackberry, and they were the go-to kit for mobility and no one thought they were going anywhere in the business world… except then the IPHONE came along, aimed at consumers this device got everywhere in the consumer world, but that also pushed them into the board room, the execs and into the workplace. The rest is as they say, history. What if however, we look at cyber security on a more personal level, what if we look at the common threats, vulnerabilities, and user experiences to try and see what CYBER is like from a consumer perspective! Have we made technology and Its security easy, in b design and usable by all generations?

I’ve done some threads of this before looking at Windows Security and parental controls with consumer level hardware. I often will investigate SOHO router security etc. but largely my view is from a business angle. I’m thinking there might be some fun with looking at cyber from a few different personas such as:

• Child/Parent
• Gamer
• Teenager
• Prosumer

A key thing I need to note is that I see LOADS of Bring Your Own/use Your Own technology in the business world, often in scenarios where as a business you don’t actually want this position, it makes data protection and security postures incredibly hard to manage. Then we have the topic of Internet of Things (IoT), now there’s lots of focus on ICS/OT in the business world, but IoT affects everything in life from homes to production lines.

So again, even more reason to look at the world with a consumer lense I think.

There’s a load of topics that are relevent to both business technology managment and personal technoogy and cyber security:

• Global data volumes/Personal Data volumes
• Device Security
• Personnel Security
• Disinformation
• Surveillance States
• Cyber Surveillance
• Privatisation of Intelligence Services
• Advertising Technology and it’s implications on modern life and privacy
• Augmentation
• Miniaturisation/Computers in everything (IoT etc.)
• Consumerisation of capability
• Cyber Stalking
• Malware
• Machine Learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media and Cyber Security & Privacy Implications
• Hacking
• Education & Gaming
• Digital Education

See I have a hunch that things might not be quite as the “infosec” world sees them… and that’s something I want to explore, communication is probably the biggest challenge I see in the cyber world. Not as a “the most important” thing but the challenge between communication and technology education and understanding. For there needs to be symbiosis. Too often I see people touting “cyber is simple” and “cyber is all about the human element” vs “Cyber is a technical challenge with technical solutions” and in my experience, both views aren’t in line with reality and both lead to negative cyber outcomes for humanity. With this in mind, surrounded by robots and 0s and 1s I think I’m going to do some research!