JANUARY 30 — The concept of physical security is easy to explain to most Malaysians; witness the heavy grilles on doors and windows, the automated security doors on houses.
But when it comes to digital security I find most Malaysians prefer to tune out.
Why so? Why aren’t Malaysians as mad about the recent information breaches that saw personal data being sold on the Dark Web?
Instead we saw some of them accuse the whistleblowers and the authorities haul in media who reported the matter.
The simple fact of the matter is that security isn’t sexy. As someone who used to write a lot about security, I can affirm that it is not a subject that is easy to make both accessible and interesting.
It doesn’t help that the topic can be both complex and scary for the layman. Viruses are simple enough to explain but telling someone that an anti-virus isn’t the cure-all for security concerns, that it is at most a band-aid, is not easy news to convey.
We can only do so much to make tech easier to comprehend. This is an age where technology is progressing faster than some of us can keep up.
I still see people who get easily flummoxed by things some of us take for granted, such as email and ATM machines.
It is easy to get overwhelmed by the constant flow of information, the confusing array of new devices that keep popping up.
The obsession with making things “smart” as in smart cars, smart refrigerators and speakers (among other things) is slightly disconcerting.
This rush to make fancy, shiny things while downplaying their risks is a little too prevalent in tech. The whole “move fast and break things” ethos Facebook pushed is, alas, turning out to be a really bad idea.
To do no harm is a concept tech companies need to consider but they too know ― like I do ― that neither consumers nor investors like to read the fine print.
We like to be told the good news, we have motivation gurus even exhorting people to avoid reading the news altogether because there is too much negativity.
Isn’t it human nature, though? We like being told the things we want to hear and get angry when people tell us unsettling news, even if it is news we need to know.
In a world obsessed with numbers, security news is often ignored by consumer-facing, mainstream media because people just don’t like clicking on them. If we keep putting out news just on the basis of what consumers want instead of what they need, all papers will end up just being the Kardashian Times.
The solution I think is really to keep trying. The rarer security news comes out, the less the public knows how to deal with it.
It is not easy to persuade people to become more security-conscious but it’s something that needs to be done.
In the meantime I will have to talk to my sister about why talking to Alexa needs a lot more security precautions.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
