As we sit in meetings and hear “yeah, so let’s circle back to that in the new year”, as we receive out of office emails, as we get quite literally bombarded with solicitations (to go buy things or donate money), we find ourselves yet again at the end of a calendar year, heading into “the holidays”.
It is “the holidays” because it incorporates a selection of them with a variety of observances and customs, and I can get behind any seasonality that involves getting together with the ones you love and eating things. Oh, and pretty lights.
This is also the time of year where you may be dragged into being tech support for a friend or family member and remember that it is an honor and a privilege: You Are the Techie Person. You get to say stuff like “it works on my machine” and “have you tried turning it off and turning it on again”. Practice holding your coffee mug in your non-dominant hand while gesturing at screens, it will help.
If, however, you do not want to spend all of your time at a gathering doing tech support, and you’ve allotted a specific amount of time to do the Good Work, here’s some suggestions. For all of these you should explain to the recipient what you are doing and why, so they understand when things change. It also means that they can’t wander off and leave you by yourself to play tech support (unless you, and they, want it that way).
15 Minutes
With 15 minutes, grab the phone(s) of the intended persons (WITH THEIR PERMISSION) and:
- Ensure they are updated with the latest patches – this will help guard them against security issues and could help performance.
- Adjust the text sizing/accessibility features as needed – sometimes these are hard or confusing to get to.
- If the phone is a sea of apps, make sure they know how to search for apps and/or reconfigure their first page of apps to the ones they use the most.
- Establish a family code word for human MFA – AI has gotten savvy and so if Grandma gets a call from her “Grandson” explaining he’s in jail / trapped in a town someplace else / needs money, Grandma can ask for the passphrase. The kid will know it, AI will not. (You may need to show Grandma some examples of AI real-time deepfakes, so she understands the abilities of the bad guys).
- Depending on the state of the person and what kind of support you do, you may want to enable location sharing to you. If you do that explain why.
3o-45 Minutes
With this additional time,
- Make sure they are storing passwords someplace safe. IF THAT IS A PIECE OF PAPER, make sure they understand that that piece of paper needs to be hidden and not just hanging out and visible to anyone who visits the house. Pitch solidly for a password manager — the one Apple has built in is fine; Bitwarden is good too.
- Make sure they understand to NOT STORE THEIR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION IN THEIR BROWSER. If they are doing that, walk them through why it needs to be removed, and teach them how to use Apple Pay or Pay Pal. Yes, this may take more than 15 minutes.
- Walk them through how MFA works (if they don’t already know it) and ensure it’s set up for any/every instrument tied to money (bank accounts, shop/store accounts, subscriptions, etc.)
An Hour or More
- Check to see if the router ADMIN password is unique and not the one the router shipped with. If it is, change it, make sure they add it to whatever they’re using to manage their passwords, and explain to them why (I find it useful to use the “Garage Door Opener” example: there was a thing a few decades back where folks discovered that if you bought a garage door opener and drove through neighborhoods eventually you’d find one you could open).
- Make sure their Wi-Fi is not open for all – it should be password gated and that password should be stored accordingly.
- If you have crazy amounts of time and inclination – let’s say you’re visiting from out of town and staying at the house a few days? –
- Consider setting up a guest Wi-Fi and/or IoT Wi-Fi network. Separate things-that-touch-money from “smart” things (e.g., smart fridge, smart thermostat, etc.), and also separate “visitors”.
- Go through browser hygiene on all machines – how cookies work, what you do and don’t get for them (explain that this is how Facebook knows you were shopping for boots).
- Make sure machines are on auto-update for patches.
- Consider getting a separate authenticator, and walking them through how and why to use that.
- Explain passkeys.
Stocking Stuffers
- Don’t plug your phone in to charge at any rando USB port. Instead, use a USB Condom. And with this, let the recipient know that they should never have to download an app just to charge their devices.
- You can also get them a portable charger, especially if they travel a lot.
- Bitwarden has a free tier but also for $1/mo or $3.33/mo you can get extras.
- Ghostery is free but does accept donations.
- Signal is free but does accept donations.
- Credit Monitoring – even though we all get it “free” every time one of our accounts is compromised, it’s a good idea.
- Authenticator Apps – Wirecutter and PC Mag have covered these.
Next post: why the Credit Monitoring is a good idea, and how to deal with the never-ending Data Breach issues.
Bobbie Conti 