...Vice's Motherboard admits cyber-journo jealousy and documents the best stories of 2021. Also, I'm building something new for our community.

Hi. I'm Jon Fedor and this is InCyber Regular, edition 27.

InCyber exists to help people secure their digital gemstones and belongings. We go hard in the paint on personal digital security and also talk security topics for small to medium businesses.

Today:

1. A new idea (walking the talk)
2. Cyber-jealousy (Motherboard's round up)
3. TryHackMe

But first,

Goals

Our mission is to help you stop exposing yourself on the internet; to make your digital presence more secure than it was yesterday.

How do we measure this?

In the last two months of 2021 the goal was to inspire and assist three people to start using password managers.

And we succeeded! That pumps me up.

Big next task is the goal for the first three months of 2022. What should we work on in Q1?

Here's a connected idea:

It's not Original but may be the next thing

I've had the chance to consult with quite a number of people on selecting and setting up a password manager - beyond the three from our community who just got started.

I noticed two things:

1. The people are significantly diverse in age: a retiree, early career, insurance executive etc AND
2. The work is intensely gratifying. Like a huge ice cream cone in the middle of a hot summer day

I'd like to make a tool that could be used anytime, anywhere to help people get started with a password manager.

Right now I'm thinking it would aimed specifically at first-time password manager users with low computing knowledge.

In other words: I'd like to make something that doesn't skip steps and doesn't take anything for granted.

I'm going to start building and you'll get first-looks at progress as we go!

Get ready to voice your opinion.

Cyber-jealousy

Vice's Motherboard (their tech-focused publication) recently wrote about their curated list of cybersecurity stories from 2021 that they wished they had written.

A brag rag for other pubs, of sorts.

Cool idea! Some great great stories in this list including:

How China turned a prize-winning iPhone hack against the Uyghurs

and

Google’s Top Security Teams Unilaterally Shut Down A Counterterrorism Operation 

and more!

Get in there and catch up on the 2021 world of cybersecurity.

TryHackMe

It's obvious by now that I've started exploring number of different directions both in quest for the treasure of 2022 and just generally to find new, better, (stronger, faster), ways to add lasting value to our growing community.

One of these new things I'm trying is, TryHackMe.

It's an educational platform with instruction and hands-on teaching about cybersecurity and whitehat hacking topics across the board.

They have rooms (modules) that span the absolute basics of the computer and then internet all the way through Linux mastery, penetration testing, and advanced red-team-style hacking.

VERY interesting and even addicting (because it's pretty well gamified). Here are some of my highlights.

Learning dashboard with upcoming topics to learn and progress:

Skills matrix, again, documenting progress with more granularity:

Leaderboard information (like crack for competitive people):

This site is seriously impressive. If you ever wanted an easy place to start to increase your knowledge and get yoked on cybersecurity, TryHackMe is a great place to invest time.

Thanks!

As we make our way deeper into 2022 there's no telling what's around the corner. Maybe a giant, ring-bearer-eating spider. Maybe a capture the flag...flag. But hopefully what's around the corner for you is more knowledge about operating securely on the internet.

Keep reading and let's ensure that this year together.

Let me know what goal we should all work on in Q1 of 2022. Let's keep building this InCyber community! I'd be glad to hear your ideas.

Have a good'un, Good Lookin'.

~ Jon "Don't Try to Hack Me" Fedor