Episode Transcript
Patricia Cangas: Welcome to Pixel Parenting, the podcast that helps families raise kids in a world full of screens using science and curiosity. Here, we share science-backed strategies and real conversations to help you build healthier digital habits with practical tools for everyday parenting in this digital age. Let's get into it. Today, I'm talking again with Kae David and Chad Rychlewski, the cybersecurity experts behind Cybersecurity Parents and the Cyber Smart Family Series. Last time, they helped us protect our kids online. This time, they turn the camera around to our parents. Their new book, Cyber Smart Caregiving, is written for the sandwich generation, those of us raising children while also looking out for our aging parents in a world that keeps getting more digital. We get into why scammers go after older adults, the AI calls that can sound exactly like someone you love, the one habit that stops most scams, and how to bring this up with your own parents for the first time without making them feel you are intruding into their lives. Let's get into it. So welcome back. I'm very excited to have you back here. So last time, we talked about protecting our kids online, and it turns to our parents. What made you write it?
Chad Rychlewski: Yeah. So the sandwich generation, right? The, everyone that has kids but they're also dealing with their parents. The minute we launched the first book, people were asking, "Well, what's the next book? I have an idea." Everyone had their own idea. It was AI or caregivers, so the title is Cyber Smart Caregiving. Uh, it was really... We felt the way that the market is right now, the same thing with the first book, there was a big gap for kids and there's also a big gap for parents. This book, I think, can also be used for adults that just wanna educate themselves. So we felt that we were hitting a bigger audience that needed this
Chad Rychlewski: information over something else that people were suggesting.
Patricia Cangas: Yep. Makes total sense. So one concept that, um, stood out to me is the sandwich generation. Can you talk about that?
Kae David: Yeah, happy to do so. So as Chad mentioned before, we wanted to create this guidebook for the sandwich generation, which is essentially those that are stuck between, uh, for lack of a better word, helping to raise their own family, their own children, while also helping to parent, uh, an older generation of caregivers. Uh, so they really have kind of dual responsibility for looking how to protect children growing up in a very digital heavy-handed space, but at the same time, helping to protect those who were helping to raise them in a more technical world, and being able to say, "Hey look, as an aging population, you are
Kae David: vulnerable as well, and this is what it means specifically for you." And so some of the research that we did was specifically talking about how aging population is targeted differently than, let's say, like children online. And the implications are, you know, a lot more related to financial impact, independence, and yes, there is also like emotional ties to it as well, psychologically as well. Um, but it's less about online bullying and topics that we really talked about in our previous book- Mm-hmm ... and more so, um, targeting manipulation techniques to be able to get highly confidential information such as finance, health, and more.
Kae David: So the sandwich generation has to think about cybersecurity on quite a spectrum and how to best protect their family, uh, both the younger generation and the older generation.
Patricia Cangas: Yeah. Um, makes sense. So how are they targeted?
Kae David: So there's a few different ways. Uh, Chad, do you wanna go ahead?
Chad Rychlewski: Yeah, the... So banking is a big one. Um, Hollywood has not villainized this, but they've made it a reality. There's a couple different movies out there right now that actually give you a sense of the things that could happen and they're super realistic. I think the one is Beekeeper with Jason Statham. A woman is actually called that there's a tech problem on your computer. We just need remote access, and we can fix it for you. The minute the bad actors gain remote access, they get right into her bank account and drain it completely. Sorry for the spoilers, folks. It's a really good movie. You should watch it.
Chad Rychlewski: But those types of things actually happen in real life. Another way is healthcare information. So we've talked about in the past how your personally identifiable information with just probably five different... Not probably, actually with five different pieces of your PII, someone can steal your identity. So the same thing that we talked about with the children about freezing your credit applies to older adults, and it's even more prevalent, we believe, because of all the different financials that your parents have and older aging adults have. There's a couple other ways, Kae, if you wanna get into some of those
Chad Rychlewski: too.
Kae David: Yeah, I was gonna mention also, I think you can't have a conversation today without mentioning AI. And so one of the things that we've seen as well, and just what we found in our research, is with the rise of AI, there's a lot more sophisticated attacks on individuals. And what we mean by that is in the past it was, you know, a Nigerian prince that has a lot of misspellings in an email sent, uh, to you to ask for money. That's usually a pretty strong indicator that there's not a Nigerian prince asking for money. But at the same time now with AI, there's a lot less, you know, misspellings. They're able to tailor it specifically to some of the public available
Kae David: information that you have. Um, we've even seen a rise of, for instance, uh, voice phishing, um, where essentially you can leverage AI to be able to replicate, for instance, a loved one's voice. So, and spoofing of numbers. So you'll have it very similar where at times you could have, you know, children's voices calling their parents saying, "Hey, we're in trouble. Mom and Dad, can you help us?" It's similar for the older generation too, where they think you are calling them or even potentially without voice manipulation, uh, there's a lot of law enforcement, uh, impersonation. So they'll pretend to be police officers, you know, political figures, uh, defenders, et
Kae David: cetera, uh, asking for help or saying that they're in trouble and if they don't, you know, be able to provide the necessary information right away, your license get revoked or they're going to-To take you to jail or something of that sort. So there's been a real rise of specific attacks on individuals leveraging AI, and it's becoming a lot harder to understand and see that those are fake or impersonations of those people that you care about.
Chad Rychlewski: That tied with the loneliness factor of an aging parent, especially one that's living alone or in a care facility, they're just looking to have a conversation. Especially, I was talking to someone else the other day about, like, old southern women. They're so nice. They just wanna help, and the bad actors want them to help give all their information away, right? So there's a lot of folks that use AI to manipulate their voice, give fake pictures, fake videos, like the deep sea oil rig. "I just need $5 and I wanna be your best friend." And all of a sudden it turns into this person that's not really on a deep sea
Chad Rychlewski: oil rig. They're in a relationship with them, and they're giving them thousands of dollars, and it's a way to do the pig butchering schemes that we've talked about in the past. Such a, a dirty term, but that's what it's called. Once we get the hook in, the bad actors get the hook in, they're able to continue to drain the bank accounts through this emotional manipulation.
Patricia Cangas: Fascinating. Um, how can we prevent? Are the same or similar conversations or tools that we use with children applicable or not?
Chad Rychlewski: Somewhat. I think the first step that we talked about in the first book is still is the first step in the second book of freeze your credit. And it's so much easier to do as an adult because myself have done it in 15 minutes just because I'm over 18. So you can walk your parents through it. They could do it themselves if they're a little tech-savvy. Then they can go and thaw it if they wanna, you know, take out a loan, buy a car or something like that. The basics still apply, and this, the reason that we wrote this was for folks that need the basic hygiene type of controls. You know, don't use the same password everywhere.
Chad Rychlewski: Use MFA. Some of the same things we are, you know, explaining to children, we're definitely talking to adults about as well.
Patricia Cangas: Yeah, makes sense. Um, what will be the top recommendations or top actions that you would recommend our generation to provide our parents or to do? Like, do I get in my mom's phone and just change her settings? Do I teach her? What, what do I do?
Kae David: Luckily, we break it all down in our new book that we're releasing, uh, called Cyber Smart Caregiving, and so we have a few different, depending on where your parents are at. So as, uh, Chad and I mentioned earlier, you know, our parents are getting older as well, but it just kinda depends on the stage that they're at. So for instance, if there is mental decline, there might be a different conversation that you have, versus if they're in a nursing home, versus if they live at home with you, versus if they are still very much independent. Um, it kinda just depends on the stage that they're at, along
Kae David: with how they interact with technology. So you have some parents that are allergic to it and just don't really engage whatsoever, and then you have other aging parents that, you know, have really leaned in to a tech-forward kind of age. And so they are interconnected on all aspects. They have their tablets, their phones, their laptops, et cetera. They might have more devices than you. You don't know. And so some of the things you can do is first, as Chad mentioned, is start with a conversation. Understand where they're at. Um, the idea is not to have a blame game or make them feel that they can't come to you with questions or concerns,
Kae David: 'cause a lot of times what we found is, unlike children, so to speak, uh, when you have an aging population, they're actually a little bit more embarrassed when something happens. Like, yes, children are as well, but the mindset of I'm an adult, I should be able to do this, like, I'm probably alone in this, like, I should have, quote-unquote, known better, right? That's the idea when you're an aging adult, and you're s- embarrassed, and then you're scared of losing your independence. So being able to establish a relationship and conversation with your parents or anyone you care about who might be an older generation but you have concerns with,
Kae David: uh, you can be able to talk to them and just say, "Hey, I just wanted to check in. Um, there's been a lot of targeted attacks on an older population, and I just wanna make sure that I'm talking to you of, do you have questions about it? Has any of your friends been targeted? I know so and so over here, like, their mom actually was targeted." And, you know, you can make up a scenario, or maybe unfortunately it's real, where you're saying, you know, they lost $5,000 because a scamming email that they didn't know better for. So making sure that you create a safe conversation starter with your parents or whomever to be able to say, "Hey, look, like, what's going
Kae David: on? How do you feel about this? This is what I've heard." And then you can start double-clicking into, "Well, do you mind? Like, let's look at all your devices. Uh, when's the last time they've been updated? Like, how do you make sure that there's not a virus on them?" And being able to do a tech audit, so to speak, with your family or those you care about to say, "Let's just look through." And we have, like, a step-by-step in our guidebook to say, "All right. Let's look at this. This is what you need to do for this device. Let's look at this device. Do they have that device? Great. Let's double-click on what they should do.
Kae David: You know, step one, do this. Step two, do this." So we try to make it tactical in this one as well so that you can just kind of decide, you know, start the conversation and where to go from there. I don't know, Chad, if you have other recommendations, too.
Chad Rychlewski: Yeah. I mean, Kae said the word, uh, enough, but I'll say it again, 'cause everything that we do is foundationally around the conversations. We don't wanna put people in a position where their parents, their caregivers are feeling like the sandwich generation, the younger folks, us, are trying to control what they're doing. Definitely not the messaging here. But we want them to feel comfortable. We need to have those conversations, and I think the tech audit is super important just because for kids we're doing the tech audit to see what they could get into when we're not looking. I'm not saying that we want to monitor our parents either.
Chad Rychlewski: But we do wanna understand, like Kae was saying, all the different nodes and entry points that are available to the internet because those nodes and entry points can be breached, and then bad actors can find more things. We know that aging parents aren't, you know, going out and buying Google Nest devices and things like that and properly setting them up. They're gonna plug it right in and go to work, and there's a lot of things that they should consider when they set those things up, and that's, that's initially a part of that conversation and the tech audit, so they can understand some of the risks that are behind this great tech that they're deploying
Chad Rychlewski: in their homes.
Patricia Cangas: Yeah, makes sense. Um, you mentioned the virus. So sometimes, and I've experienced this, um, actually, I, I'm gonna give you an example. My mom from time to time emails me emails from the antivirus software that it's clearly not the antivirus company emailing, right? So she's afraid, so she falls into the bucket of the afraid parents of tech, and she never clicks. But that's her. I know parents that click, and they're like, "Oh yeah, the antivirus. I don't, I don't want the virus. I don't want the virus." Click, click, click, click, and then, you know. So that's a very specific, like, you haven't been through the audit yet as
Patricia Cangas: a son or daughter. What conversation should we have for them sending us the email, right?
Chad Rychlewski: My general guidance is, you know, like a- as adults, like the amount of bills that we get, the IRS emails, like everything's digital these days. And if it doesn't come in, in snail mail, it comes through email. If it's that important, they're gonna send me a second one or maybe a third one, right? So if someone's sending you something and it looks a little fishy, good for you for, you know, sniffing that out and thinking it, it looks a little fishy. If it's legit, they're going to send you another one. Bad actors rarely duplicate efforts on a single target. They're trying to spray like a bird pellet shotgun.
Chad Rychlewski: They're trying to hit as many things as they possibly can. And using AI, they can scale that a lot better, but they're not keeping track of all this on the, in the background, right? They're, they're not going to hit you again. So that's generally understanding who you have contracts with, who you have services with, is kind of a part of that initial discussion in tech audit, too. So certainly, if you're getting an email from a company that you've never purchased something for, delete it. And then honestly, if you get a second one, like look into it, maybe it is something that you purchased or someone purchased under
Chad Rychlewski: your name, and you might need to look into that. But that's my general guidance.
Kae David: We also teach the pause method, where it's literally just teaching them to pause before they react. The reason being is a lot of times these messages from the threat actors, they are meant to elicit a sense of urgency. You know, act now, this has to be done, et cetera, et cetera. And it's urgency with major repercussions at times. You know, if you don't provide this, there was, um, essentially a campaign where people were receiving text messages, uh, saying that the DMV was reaching out to them because you had, you know, so many unpaid parking tickets, and unless you follow this link right now and pay it all off right now, we're gonna
Kae David: revoke your license. And so it was clearly like a campaign. People were confused, and I, I remember talking to my own parents about this of saying, "You know, the DMV gives you multiple notifications, or like you find out you have parking tickets." Also, that's an extreme repercussion right away out of the gate to say, "Well, now you're not legally allowed to drive because we're gonna revoke your license because you don't click this link." So teaching parents to pause when there's a sense of urgency, read through it, and think, "Okay, do we think this is real? Do we think it's not?" And the second best
Kae David: thing you can do is after pausing and if you're still unsure, contact the direct number of, for instance, your bank. Contact the direct number of your local Department of Motor Vehicles. Like contact the IRS. Like there's ways to reach out to institutions that are legitimate to be able to say, "Hey, I got this inquiry from you. I wanna validate if it's real." So never responding directly to the email or directly to the phone number that they provide you, but rather going and looking at, for instance, the back of your credit card or your debit card and calling your bank directly to say, "Hey, I got this urgent email from you
Kae David: guys saying that you're gonna close my account unless I pay off these like, you know, loans that I, I didn't even know existed or these tickets that didn't e- even know I existed." And they can say, "That wasn't us." Uh, so I think that's what we teach is being able to first take that pause, recognize a sense of urgency might not necessarily be that urgent. Contact the institution that is impersonate- being impersonated directly and say, "Hey, was this you?" And then to Chad's point, right, it's a maybe you wait for a second notice if you're comfortable with that to say, you know, "Did you actually
Kae David: contact me? I don't remember seeing all the emails beforehand saying I had all these unpaid parking tickets to lead to getting my license revoked." So that's something else that we teach.
Chad Rychlewski: I'll eat my words on the, uh, the bad actor won't contact you twice because during that text campaign, I was contacted multiple times. The fun part is I have an area code from another state that I grew up in, and I know for a fact that I wasn't in that state in the past, like 10 years, so obviously I don't have unpaid parking tickets there. But that's when multi- multimodality comes into play. So you're getting these texts, a legitimate company, like you get a hospital bill, you get an email, you get an app notification, you get snail mail, or you get a second snail mail. So legitimate companies are gonna use multimodalities as well.
Patricia Cangas: Yeah, actually, I'm recently getting all these emails of a loan that has been approved, and I have to click. I haven't applied to any loan and-
Chad Rychlewski: Congratulations on getting that loan that you didn't know that you even applied to, yeah.
Patricia Cangas: Exactly, exactly. But it's tempting, and I actually self-doubted myself, like, "Did I apply to something and I don't forget?" I, I, and I, I, I forgot-
Kae David: Mm-hmm. Taking a moment to pause and think-
Patricia Cangas: Right? Like when did I apply?
Kae David: ... wait a second.
Patricia Cangas: And it's an ongoing email thread in my inbox. And even though I have, and actually maybe you have a solution for this, and maybe this is too specific, but I reported it as, it as junk email, so it didn't go into my email, but into my inbox, but it still gets into my inbox with a different domain or address or whatever. So they're very persistent, actually.
Chad Rychlewski: They are. I mean, that could be a legitimate loan that someone stole an identity and tried to open. So I'd first actually recommend going to one of those credit bureaus. If you haven't frozen your credit, definitely freeze it. But you can actually run a credit check and see if you have a loan under your name because it could be someone, you know, performed an actual, uh, loan application using your information. Preventing it coming into your inbox, I leave that to the internet service providers and the Gmails of the world that have advanced spam filters. The more you hit spam on these things, the more their engines are learning
Chad Rychlewski: and trying to prevent it from coming into your inbox to begin with.
Patricia Cangas: Okay. That was actually helpful. Great tip. I'm gonna look into that. Thanks. So let's say one of our parents gets scammed. What do we do?
Chad Rychlewski: Ooh, okay, there's, there's a whole chapter on that. You wanna get into it?
Kae David: Yeah, so we have a whole chapter of talking about, like, what is... what happened immediately, right? So let's say they clicked the link and something, you know, there's maybe a financial repercussion or their information was leaked, et cetera. So one of the first things that you wanna make sure is, again, coming back to the relationship and the conversations that you have, make sure that they feel comfortable to be able to come to you and say, "Hey, I think I did something wrong," or, "Hey, I think something might have happened." Um, 'cause if they don't notify anyone, then it can just kind of snowball and continue
Kae David: to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Um, so that's one of the first things is make sure they feel comfortable coming to you. And then depending on the situation, we'll go through a theoretical one where let's say they gave out their banking information, right? They gave their not a credit card, but a bank information, and now there's concerns of, like, you know, "I think someone stole some money from my account." So the first thing is being able to notify the bank right away and say, "Hey, I don't recognize this transaction. I think it's fraudulent. I'd like to put a freeze on my account for making sure that there's no withdrawals allowed." And then being able to say whether
Kae David: or not you need to open a net new account and transfer the funds so that they no longer have that information. It's also understanding what other information they might have gotten from your parents or whoever, like, you're, you're talking to. So is it just the bank account information, or did they get the Social? D- Like, how, how big is it, right? How big did it go? So that way you can start contacting others as well, uh, other financial institutions, like anywhere that hopefully it's not a Social Security number, but if it is, being able to figure out, you know, who do you need to contact. The other thing that we list actually in the book
Kae David: is some federal agencies to notify as well to make sure that you report that the scam happened, there was an incident, and that, you know, there's these repercussions. The reason being is by providing the necessary data in the report, they can also help potentially prevent it in the future from happening to others. So being able to monitor if there's a certain threat actor that's rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, doing the same scam, they're able to notify the public, um, or be able to monitor the actions of that threat actor and be able to identify who's, who it's coming from. So also being able to report it to the legal authorities and different agencies,
Kae David: uh, depending on how, how big it is. In general, it's also good to just report it, just again, for more data for these institutions to be able to hopefully catch whoever's doing the scam campaign. Unfortunately, it depends on the incident. In the theoretical situation where it was directly tied to a bank account, the likelihood of getting that money back is very low, unfortunately. So it is one of those situations. That's why we also advise parents to always use credit cards, actually, because it's a lot easier to deal with a credit card, um, or fraudulent charges on a credit card than it is, for instance, a debit card.
Kae David: Once that money leaves your bank account, it's really hard to be able to track it and get it back. Uh, so that's some of the steps is being able to first have the conversation and make sure that your parents feel, or whoever you're working with, feel comfortable coming to you to say, "Hey, I think something might have happened." Don't immediate react with, like, anger or anxiety. Just be like, "Okay, tell me what happened. What was the conversation? Do you remember all the information you gave them? It's okay if not. Take a deep breath. Like, this happens, so, like, let's just walk through it." Then it's like, okay,
Kae David: once you have the information of what's been stolen or leaked, be able to start acting on, "Let me contact the institutions that this impacts right away." So your bank, let's freeze your credit if not already frozen, and being able to kind of react that way, and then be able to notify the authorities to say, "Hey, this happened. This was the, you know, information they got. This was the preventative steps we took. This is the tactics they did. Wanna report it. Is there anything else that we should be doing?" Um, so that's kind of what we do, 'cause unfortunately, there's a saying where it's a not when, but if, uh, so not when...
Kae David: Uh, or sorry, not if, but when. I messed it up, Chad. Not if, but when. There we go. Edit it out. Uh, but there's a saying that basically it's a not if, but when, um, where the likelihood is that everyone's gonna have this incident at once in their life, and they just have to figure out it's okay. You just have to go on to the next steps to kind of reduce and do damage control.
Chad Rychlewski: And you don't need to keep listening to this podcast or read the entire book to remember some of these steps. Just like the first book, we want people to rip out certain pages of this one. There's, at the end of chapter five, a graphic. Um, this is a draft, so it looks a little different in the book. But this graphic can be ripped out, and you can put it right on your fridge. And then when something like this does happen, the not if, but when, then you have the steps clearly laid out in front of you. So that's just one less piece of anxiety of, like, what am I going to do when this happens? Just look at the data sheet, right?
Chad Rychlewski: And after that, there's, there's a little checklist. We didn't wanna do a contract 'cause, again, you don't want to have that kind of authoritative relationship with your parents to say, "Well, sign on this dotted line that you're only gonna have two hours of screen time," like you would with your five-year-old. This is more of, like, a check-in list. So if you wanna understand those things to check in, do you have a plan in place if there's a breach? What do you do with your passwords? It goes through a whole thing that you can actually have the conversations about and makes it a little bit more simplistic in that manner.
Chad Rychlewski: But again, rip it out, fill it out, put it on the refrigerator.
Patricia Cangas: Great. Love it. Um, if we have never had the conversation with our parents or people we care of, we take care of, how do we start the conversation without making them feel bad, basically?
Chad Rychlewski: Yeah, I mean, sometimes there's an incident that not, that happens, and it's not necessarily, like, a, a breach of their data or anything like that, but could happen in the news. I think that, unfortunately, there's a lot of this in the news, so just bringing that up is the easiest way to do it because it's someone else, it's factual. Like, I'm not, I'm not bringing fictitious things to you. CNN told me this, and I'm just letting you know. Did you hear about this? Do you do any of these things? Um, maybe they heavily use social media, and they've posted something on, on Facebook, and you, you see it, and that's, that's your entry p-...
Chad Rychlewski: point right there to be able to say, "Well, I saw what you did, and, like, here's some of the risks, so let's talk through that. Because, again, I know that you think there's no harm in putting these things on the internet, but this, this, and this could occur." Some of those instances are just great entry points to make it not seem so, uh, out of left field, if you will.
Kae David: Yeah, and we have a few different talking points in the book, too, of, like, how to start the conversation. So one is bringing up relevant news that you might have s- seen on the news or, like, read an article. There's also, um, the ability to go to your parents and say, "Oh, yeah, like I've just seen, like, a rise in a lot of issues related to cybersecurity, so I'm actually trying to teach myself on how to be more secure, and I came across some different topics. Um, would you wanna learn some of this together with me, just because I think we can both be safer online?" Um, so that way it's like you're
Kae David: part of the learning journey with them. Or it's, "Oh, I'm trying to teach myself. I wanna open it up to you to see if you'd like to learn some things," or, "Do you mind if I pass some of the conversations that I'm hearing on to you so that you can also, like, read up on it?" So it, it, there's a few different ways to approach the conversation, depending on how you feel your parents or those you care about would be receptive to it. If, uh, they're like, "I don't need to. I'm an old dog. You can't treat me, uh, teach me new tricks," situation, so then maybe it isn't a, "Hey, I'm learning something new.
Kae David: Do you wanna learn with me?" Or, you know, if someone is a little skeptical, or if you feel like the news is just super scary, and it's like, "No, no, I don't listen to the news anymore. This is just, I promote... You know, I don't wanna hear about it," then maybe it is like a, "Oh, well, I'm learning this. Would you wanna learn it with me?" So lots of different techniques, depending on the personality and how it might be perceived by your, by your family.
Patricia Cangas: Do you think gifting them your book, like, "Hey, I read this book. Um, it has a lot of practical tips. It's easy to read. Check it out," or is the book more focused on the caregivers?
Kae David: Yeah, I was gonna say, I think actually both. The reason being is for our previous book, for Cyber Smart Parenting, I know a lot of people that actually, they sent me pictures of, uh, their kids reading it. So even though we had originally tailored it for the parent who's raising the child, um, maybe they just streamlined it, and they just, uh, gave it directly to their kids and said, "Teach it yourself." But-
Patricia Cangas: The delegation.
Kae David: They just delegated that task. Yeah, delegation. There we go. They delegated the education to their kids. But I think it's completely acceptable to share the book with your parents as well, the same way that we saw for Cyber Smart Parenting, it being shared with children.
Patricia Cangas: Perfect. Do you have a page that we can rip out that, you know, it's like the few things that you as a should do, like, you know, to put on the fridge, or to, or to not do, right? W- like, what you should be mindful of, um- What are some of the- Yeah ... steps that you can take as the, for lack of a better, aging parent or aging generation, what you should do personally?
Kae David: Um, yeah, I know you have the, the proof right there, Chad. Do you wanna kinda talk to that?
Chad Rychlewski: Yeah. Should be landing right around page 61 in the final copy, but it's called a cybersecurity safety checklist, and it's right after that incident, the cyber incident, what to do first. So you can rip that out if there's a cyber incident, but then the cybersecurity safety checklist, the more we read it, the more it's relevant to you yourself and someone that is, you know, um, an aging adult that you're looking after. But it starts with device safety checklists, like let's, let's make sure that the device are secure and up to date, and goes through the different devices you could have. Password protection, what are the basics?
Chad Rychlewski: Uh, scam awareness, multi-factor authentication, the pause and check plan that you can put in place, uh, s- safe daily habits around cybersecurity, and then again with that emergency plan and monthly check-ins. So you can make this a, a cadence that you have with your parents and a cadence that you have with yourself. Because, again, I think this is a great gift for a parent, but all those adults that were reading the first book and saying, "Some of these things are applicable to me, but the words are very juvenile," because it's for children, this book is definitely written for if you wanna learn cybersecurity for yourself, here's
Chad Rychlewski: the basics just for you. And then pass it on to someone else.
Patricia Cangas: Great. So a person is listening to this episode in the car, what are the three things you would want them to do this week?
Chad Rychlewski: This week, go to cybersecurityparents.com, and you'll find a link to both of the books. There are also blogs on the website that you can take advantage of, uh, this wonderful podcast, as well as some others that we've been on if you like to listen to some of those things in the car. The second thing is if you haven't frozen your credit, freeze your credit. And then find a person in your immediate family, a relationship that you have, that you can try having a conversation about cybersecurity with. The stat that we put on the first book that blows our minds still to this day, that we're continually trying to change with all these conversations, is
Chad Rychlewski: parents spend an average of 46 minutes discussing online safety throughout their child's upbringing. Imagine how that stat applies to your parents. How many people are actually having these conversations with their parents? I don't think we have a stat on that, but it's probably closer to zero, and we're trying to make that a much bigger number, so have the conversations.
Patricia Cangas: Great. Yeah. Love it.
Kae David: Yes. Follow us on, uh, Instagram as well, where we basically host, um, or post a lot of, uh, fun tips and, um, tricks also for the types of conversations you can have with your family. And we try to put also relevant news stories, just to make sure that people are aware of what's going on that might specifically apply to their family as well.
Patricia Cangas: Yes, and I'm gonna put all of these links and references in the show notes. You can also look at them there.
Chad Rychlewski: Awesome. Thank you.
Patricia Cangas: Thank you so much. Wow, this was, um, very insightful. Is there anything you would like to add, a message you would like to launch to the audience before closing up?
Kae David: Cybersecurity is not as scary as one might think, and you don't have to be a technical expert to be able to protect your family. Um, a lot of the types of attacks that you see actually start with conversations with, uh, other individuals to try and manipulate their feelings to get them to act on something. So if you're able to think as a human and make sure that you're not being manipulated, you can be a cybersecurity expert.
Patricia Cangas: Thank you so much.
Chad Rychlewski: Thank you.
Patricia Cangas: This was, um, very insightful. I learned a lot. I'm gonna check my credit. That was Kae David and Chad Rychlewski. A few things I'm taking with me. First, the scams we worry about for our kids are now aimed at our parents, and the hook is emotion, urgency, fear, even a voice on the phone that sounds exactly like family. Second, the move is to pause. When a message pushes you to act right now, stop and check it yourself by calling the bank or the agency on a number you already have, never the one they sent. And third, this starts with a conversation, not control. Freeze your credit and make it safe for your parents to come to you
Patricia Cangas: and say, "I think I made a mistake," before a small one becomes a big one. You'll find both of their books, including Cyber Smart Caregiving, at cybersecurityparents.com, and I'll put every link in the show notes. If this episode helped, share it with one person who's looking after a parent right now. Thanks for listening.
