By Salvatore Todaro, Head of the Cybersecurity operational unit at the University of Messina
Often, when you don’t adequately protect your systems, install malicious apps on your smartphone, share too much data on social media or via email, click on suspicious links, or fall for promises of miraculous earnings, you may think the worst risks are personal financial loss, blackmail targeting you or your loved ones, or economic damage to your business. However, people rarely consider the harm to society. Remember: your digital identity could be used to attack someone who trusts you. But that’s another story for another time…
Imagine falling victim to financial fraud. Here are the steps you would face:
- Understanding the incident: You spend time figuring out what happened, which forces you to take time off work and invest energy and resources. You might even call specialists and friends for advice.
- Contacting your financial institution: If it’s financial fraud, you contact your bank, initiate internal processes, and consume your time and the bank’s resources, adding further damage and stress to your life.
- Reporting to authorities: You report the incident to seek justice. At this point, other actors come into play, funded by your taxes.
- Police investigation: The police receive your report and, along with judicial authorities, begin a complex and lengthy investigation, possibly involving multiple countries.
- Judicial proceedings: After the investigation, a trial takes place, requiring additional time and resources.
- Seeking compensation: You spend even more time and money seeking compensation—resources that likely represent further loss.
- Consequences for society: If the perpetrator is convicted, additional costs arise for all of us.
Being a victim of a crime causes acute stress, which could lead to indirect health issues requiring treatment in the near or distant future. At this point, another player enters the picture: the National Health Service. In the European Union, it is funded by taxes, as EU countries are primarily responsible for organising and providing health and medical care services.
So, if you fall victim to fraud, install malware, or mishandle your data, the damage doesn’t just fall on you—it extends to everyone. A financial loss of 100 euros (as in an online scam) can, when considering indirect collective damage, turn into a cost of several thousand euros for your fellow citizens.
Additionally, there’s the problem of perception: technology may be seen as harmful, creating a sense of threat and slowing the EU’s digitalisation process.
Beware! A wrong click, a moment of naivety, or a malicious app on your smartphone could cost everyone dearly!
When you think about it, poor cybersecurity is very similar to cigarette smoking. Both have direct and indirect consequences, including financial ones, with significant costs for everyone. Often, the root cause is individual behaviour—in this case, yours. As with smoking, it will likely take years to fully understand the problems and total costs involved.
The solution
The solution is simple: quit smoking and educate people about its harms. It’s essential to bring the issue to light and discuss it.
So, back to cybersecurity: don’t keep the valuable advice of Cybersecurity Awareness Month to yourself:
- Educate yourself and your children to guard your data carefully and share it cautiously.
- Treat your access credentials like house keys: don’t hand them over easily to strangers.
- Just like you tell your children, don’t take sweets from strangers; there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
- Don’t believe in fairy tales: you’re an adult, so act accordingly!
- Treat your home (your devices) with extreme care: repair broken windows (by applying security updates). Don’t bring home furniture picked up from the rubbish (don’t install software from untrusted sources).
- Install a reinforced door and lock doors and windows to prevent criminals from entering your home (install personal firewalls and antivirus software).
- Don’t open your door to strangers: they could be criminals (don’t respond to strangers online, even if they have a nice profile picture).
When you think about it, these are all things we tell our children in the physical world. We need to be aware that we are all children in a world full of criminals, and we must apply this advice to the digital realm.
Always be cautious: the target is you, and you represent a resource for criminals, whether you’re aware of it or not. Make life difficult for those who try to exploit you!
About the author
Salvatore Todaro, from Messina, Italy, is the Head of the “Cybersecurity” Operational Unit at the University of Messina. For 23 years, he has been involved in issues related to cybersecurity and digital identity, and he is a strong advocate of open source, teamwork, and knowledge sharing. Since 2017, he has been the Technical Coordinator for the University of Messina for the IDEM GARR Identity Federation. He has delivered various talks and courses on topics related to cybersecurity, digital identities, and the use of open-source software in government settings.
Also this year GÉANT joins the European Cyber Security Month, with the campaign ‘Your brain is the first line of defence‘. Read articles from cyber security experts within our community, watch the videos, and download campaign resources on connect.geant.org/csm24