Your Cybersecurity Survival Guide
Your Simple Solution to
Spot Social Engineering,
Stop Ransomware, and
Sleep Soundly at Night
Copyright 20 David McHale
Published by David McHale exclusively on Amazon
License Notes
Printed in the United States of America.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If youre reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Amazon.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission exception in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and articles in their entirety. For information, send an email to or call +1 (833) 892-3596.
Acknowledgements
Id like to thank my wonderful, insightful, and loving wife, Safiya, for teaching me her incredible gift of unending empathy and love.
Id like to thank my siblings, Cassidy, Kinzey, and Boden, for their warmth, love, and infinite assistance through a tumultuous upbringing.
Id also like to thank my mentors and role models in software, security and business, John Shedd, Joseph Brunsman, Brian Kurtz, Donald Spann, Craig Simpson, Michael Crist, Peter Bauer, Holden Fenner, Andrew Long, Brian Krebs, Adam Tischler, Mansur Hasib, Chip Justice, and Michael Echols for their guidance, criticism, and encouragement.
And my late parents, Sherri Lynn Jackson and Michael Andrew McHale, for giving everything they ever had and more to give our family a fighting chance here in the United States.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Your Cybersecurity Survival Guide
Book David McHale To Speak!
Introduction to Your Cybersecurity Survival Guide
Dear Friend,
Welcome to Your Cybersecurity Survival Guide.
This represents nearly 10 years of hard work, experience and the efforts of my incredible team and customers. Maybe youre one of them!
I wanted to take a moment to share some thoughts with you in no particular order about what to expect in this book.
If you have a short attention span, have ADD (like me), or learn better and faster with video, make sure to head over to hailbytes.teachable.com because you can join our training platform that explains the principles in this book in a concise video format.
First , its interactive. There are lots of opportunities for you to go deeper in the content, gain access to free training videos, participate in some interactive masterclass events and more.
Second , this book is for business. Its intended to help you grow your security culture, protect your business, and sleep easier at night. It isnt intended to serve poets, fiction-writers or people who want to write memoirs, childrens books or novels - however , it will work for those businesses but I dont focus on them.
Third , its for implementers. Youll see theres LOTS of ideas that you can use to secure any business type. If youre the type whos looking for free, easy security, this isnt the book for you. Im not here to blow smoke up your butt and lie to you.
Fourth , this book wasnt intended to be a NY Times #1 Bestseller. Its designed to start a conversation with you, give us a chance to get to know each other better, develop trust, a bond and ultimately help us decide if we will work together someday.
Fifth , this is a book thats packed with content and lots of ideas. Its a WHAT book, as well as a WHY and step-by-step HOW TO book. My intention and the purpose of this book is to show you the most powerful ways to protect yourself, expose you to multiple ways to defend yourself against criminals, build a security culture, gain insight and leverage the latest technology and strategies available and set yourself up for long-term growth and peace of mind in the future. We have a how-to system available that includes everything you need to execute what you read in these pages.
Ill be the first to admit, Im a shameless self-promoter - and I want to help you protect more people, keep your business making money and add value to your life and everyone you come in contact with. Youll notice there are opportunities throughout this book to register and watch videos and YES, I do have some great products Id like to sell to you because they work and youll have a better life with them.
Having said that, if you like what you read, or most of what you read, Id absolutely, positively love to hear from you and get to know you better and find out what you learned - or better yet post a picture or video on my facebook page at www.facebook.com/hailbytes or tweet me @hailbytes.
The BEST way to start a relationship with me will be to visit www.HailBytes.com/common-cybersecurity-questions , watch my free Q&A session, and learn more about how to protect your business and brand. Im looking forward to getting to know you better!
Sincerely,
David McHale in Laurel, MD USA
PS - I wrote and edited this book myself. There are probably some spelling, grammatical and layout errors. If you find one, will you do me a favor and tell me what you find by sending me an email to ? Just note the section, sentence and mistake and Ill fix it right away and thank you for your help . Im all about results, implementation and speed and chose to give you tools that keep you safer over perfection and procrastination.
PPS - if you love this, will you please post a review on Amazon at
Please be kind. I have two kids. They read what people say about me online and so do their friends. Theres no sense in dragging two innocent kids into something unnecessary. Nobody likes a bully and our world has too much hate in it the way it is. Lets be friends. Cool?
Welcome to the book!
My names David McHale.
Im a professional security consultant thats helped people from dozens of organizations learn how to better protect themselves from the growing threat of cybercrime.
Some of the organizations that have trusted me to help them in recent years include the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Department of the Interior.
It is becoming increasingly important for organizations to develop a culture that prioritizes cyber security.
The training and security implementation are no longer soIely IT or security team functions.
They are now functions for everyone.
Its important for each and every one of us to learn how to better protect ourselves, our families, and our employers.
Why group it all together like that?
It's because professional and personal lives are being melded together more often than not.
Not to mention your behaviors are very similar in what you do, in that which you do at home is what you'll most likely do at work.
Youre constantly hearing warnings about new threats, new breaches, and new attacks. It can be overwhelming to keep up with.
When you or your business does fall victim to an attack, people want to point fingers.
That is never the right way to approach security.
I want you to know that as we go through this course together Ill speak to you from a place of compassion and not of condescension.
I don't want to beat you over the head or speak down to you.
My number one goal is to help you understand how to protect yourself.
