The Six Days of Cybersecurity Gifts

This is the time of year when many of us wind down our busy work schedules and focus a little more on family and giving. In the spirit of giving, here are six cybersecurity gifts that you can buy for family, friends, or yourself.

Obligatory Disclaimer: I will not benefit in any way if readers purchase these products, they are just suggestions based on my personal use and testing.

Home Router

Your home router is the one device that protects your home’s digital assets from the dangers of the Internet. It is a very busy little device; constantly fighting off attacks and managing your Internet access. Considering the importance of this device, it’s shocking and disappointing that many routers do not have an automatic update feature, which means that you and I need to go the the manufacturer’s website regularly to look for updates. Unfortunately, most people don’t know this and never update their router’s firmware. Another upsetting fact is that many routers that are more than a few years old are no longer supported by the manufacturer, which means no patching of vulnerabilities, even if you manually go look for them.

So, the most important feature to look for in a home router is that it has an automatic update feature. You never know when your router manufacturer will patch a vulnerability and since they don’t know that you bought their router, they can’t tell you. None of us want our home networks to be attacked but home routers are a favorite target these days.

While there are many great auto-update routers on the market, one of my favorites for most people is the Amplifi router because it is not only attractive enough to be on display in your home, but it also updates itself with patches and is relatively affordable.

Amplifi Router

By Ubiquiti

If you have a large house or property and need to extend your Wi-Fi range, this Amplifi router package comes with two mesh antennas which work great for adding a signal to those dead zones. Just plug them into a regular power outlet and you have extended your wireless network.

Amplifi Router with Mesh Antennae

By Ubiquiti

VPN or Virtual Private Network

VPNs are used for many reasons.

• Security: They encrypt all of your network traffic when you have to join an unencrypted, untrusted network, like in a coffee shop.

• Privacy: Some people use VPNs so their Internet Service Provider cannot see what they are doing on the Internet.

• Geographic Content: VPNs can give your computer an IP address in a different geography so you can stream regional content.

There are a lot of VPN services available and many of them have prices that are only a few dollars per month. But why pay for a VPN service when you can just VPN back to your house for free? With the Amplifi Teleport, you can easily VPN back to your home network while you are traveling or out at the local coffee shop. NOTE: You do need to be running the Amplifi router from the previous recommendation for this to work.

The Amplifi Teleport

By Ubiquiti

While, this solution won’t allow you to hide your Internet traffic from your home’s Internet provider, it does give you remote access to your home network and the streaming content available at hour house. Additionally, it also encrypts your network traffic if you’re on an unencrypted, untrusted public wi-fi network.

If you are still in the market for a VPN service, be careful and do your homework. The VPN service you use will be able to see all of your traffic. The VPN service provider cannot read your encrypted traffic but they can see where you are sending it. They can also see all of your unencrypted traffic. For more information, check out the EFF’s guide to VPN services.

Password Manager

If you don’t have hyperthymesia, then you need to use a password manager. Since I have written about password managers in the past, I’ll keep this short. We all have way too many passwords and each of those has to be unique and resistant to guessing. That means they need to be long. If you only had 20 online accounts, you would still need to remember 20 different, long passwords.

Why can’t you just re-use passwords? Because if someone guesses or otherwise finds out your password, then they can gain access to more than one of your accounts. When threat actors get username and password combinations, they conduct what is called a credential stuffing attack to try that username and password on as many online sites as possible. So if you use the same username and password for LinkedIn and Twitter, and one of them is compromised, the other will likely be compromised too.

Using any password manager is better than not using one at all. I am recommending LastPass because it’s what I have used for years. There is a free version and an inexpensive version ($36/year) and you can use it on Mac, PC, Linux, iOS, and Android.

However, I am a huge fan of open source software and KeePassXC is another great option with the added benefit of being open source and free.

Travel Router

This is the one device you didn’t know that you needed. When I’m in an airport, coffee shop, or if I need to join any untrusted network, I pull out the tiny travel router. This little device acts like your home router, but is small enough to fit into a computer bag.

To use it, you just plug it into a power outlet or your computer and when it boots up, you log in with your laptop or mobile device. Then you connect it to the untrusted wired or wireless network. It has two antennae, one for connecting to the untrusted Wi-Fi and the other is to broadcast your personal wireless network. You connect your devices to that network and the firewall in the router protects you from anyone on that untrusted network.

I have tried only one of these, but after reading many reviews, I purchased and regularly use, the Slate.

Slate Travel Router

By GL-iNet

USB Data Blockers

Have you heard of juice jacking? If not, check out my July 2019 blog on the topic. This little product protects your mobile devices from malicious USB charging ports which may be found in public places like libraries, airports or coffee shops or even in a hotel room. The way a USB Data Blocker works is that it only allows the power feature of USB connection and disables the data connections. I have tried a few of these but my favorite is the PortaPow.

USB Data Blocker

By PortaPow

Privacy Filters

Privacy filters are are another great travel product. They keep prying eyes off of your screen when you’re forced to work on a computer around other people. This is especially useful on airplanes and in coffee shops or other public areas. It’s basically a thin piece of removable plastic that you attach to your computer screen, that limits the viewing angle to the point where someone sitting next to you cannot see what’s on your screen at all. However, someone in the seat behind you may be able to see over your shoulder so be aware of your surroundings. I have tired a few of these over the years and all of them have worked quite well. These days, I seem to lean toward the 3M Privacy Filters. I like the Gold version but I’m very interested in the anti-glare model.

Privacy Filter

By 3M