SAFETY VS SECURITY

People say to me all the time “hey, I have a cyber security question”. I tell them “cool! I don’t teach cyber security, let me know what you find out” and they look at me sideways. I then deep-dive into the differences between SAFETY and SECURITY. Much of the time, these topics are used interchangeably. But, they are not the same.

Think of security as your front door, back door, car door or office door. If I want to secure a door, I lock it(obviously with it closed, a locked open door is dumb lol). I have then “secured” the door. Same with a window. I wanted to secure my castle, I would raise the draw bridge, fill the moat and have archers on the ramparts and para-pits.

Safety, on the other hand, more so involves actions. Parents tell children all the time not to take candy from strangers or to get in vehicles with strangers. This is safety. We stop and look both ways before crossing the street. We don’t go down dark alleys in strange neighborhoods at night. We do this because of “safety”.

So when we think cyber security VS cyber safety our actions and intentions are different. Cyber security is firewalls, VPN’s and system monitoring. Cyber safety is “hygiene”. What websites are we going to, who are we talking to, what information are we putting out there. Is the risk worth the reward?

I don’t teach cyber security. This involves programming and data and tech usually. I teach common sense, easy to learn skills which can be adapted by anyone to almost any digital application.

Can security be put in place for safety, yes, absolutely. But we need to understand, they are different and need to be different. Everyone and everything has a role to play.