CSO

Okay, well maybe she isn’t a master, but her grasp is well beyond that of a good number of the business professionals that I’ve had occasion to deal with.  My daughter has become the “computer whiz” in our household and is tasked with troubleshooting problems for her siblings and her mother.  Though our household is graced with Windows XP, and Linux (Suse & Ubuntu), her platform of choice is my wife’s MacBook running OS X Leopard.  I’m proud of my kids and their saavy computer skills.  I’ve enjoyed what they’ve taught me about information security.  My youngest daughter, age 5 has been “installing” Windows patches since she just turned four years old.  Granted, that only involved clicking in the appropriate location of the pop-up window until it went away.

I’m both impressed and alarmed at how Microsoft has dumbed down its user interface to the point that it has become a picture menu.  This is great for usability and horrible for information security.  That same daughter that installs Windows patches, will click on any pop-up that appears on the screen.  She has learned that even though she can’t read well, if she clicks in the right place, the pop-up will go away.  Obviously this is a boon for the miscreants intent on tricking us into installing malware on our computers.

My older daughter, on the Mac, is able to perform much more complex operations.  She is older, but the user interface allows her the opportunity to easily find the programs and utilities that she needs.  She can connect to access points, change connections, etc.  This doesn’t sound like much, but the Mac affords her the safety of precluding her from inadvertently installing malware.  She knows that she has to read the screen, make a decision about her actions and then give her password.  There is no need to right click anything or navigate some complex series of menus.  The Mac give the less than savvy user a leg up in helping to protect themselves from the bad guys.