Five Cyber-Secure Gifts For Your Family and Friends
‘Tis the giving season, when your family members, friends, and loved ones are expecting you, someone who works in the cybersecurity industry, to gift them the coolest cyber gadgets. You probably have the edgiest occupation out of everyone on your gift list, so giving them presents like matching-flannel pajamas or ugly sweaters are out of the question! Don’t worry, we have five great gift ideas that will leave your whole crew speechless. On the other hand, if you’re looking for cybersecurity related gifts for your professional colleagues, our post on Top 5 Cyber Gifts for the Executive might also give you some ideas.
1. Wocket – Smart Wallet
Nobody likes carrying around a hip-cramp-inducing wallet, so why not gift someone special a Wocket? The Wocket markets itself as the world’s first Smart Wallet. The Wocket can store the information of all your cards (bank cards, driver license, gift cards, loyalty cards, and insurance cards) into a single WocketCard and without the need of a smartphone or smartwatch (like Apple Pay or Google Pay). When making a purchase, instead of fumbling through your wallet at the register, select which card you’d like to use on the touch screen, remove your WocketCard, and insert it or swipe it as you usually would. This eliminates the hassle of reorganizing your cards, the never-ending battle of trying to make more room in your wallet, or forgetting to grab that gift card you’d wanted to use. Say goodbye to that bulky wallet!
How is it secure? The Wocket uses biometric voice security to keep all your information protected. All of the stored information is protected by a tamper-proof encrypted chip, secured by your biometric voice print. Another benefit is you won’t have to worry about RF Skimming. The WocketCard is zeroed out after each use, so RF blocking is not required as a protected measured. However, since some Wocket wallets can physically accommodate additional cards (besides your WocketCard), RF blocking is used to prevent RF skimming. You and you only will have access to your Wocket. Lastly, Wocket promises to never upload your card data to a server or store it on a potentially insecure device such as your smartphone.
2. Tile Bluetooth Tracker
Do you have a family member that’s always misplacing their keys, luggage, purse, phone or even the remote? Seriously consider gifting them Tile – a small, square Bluetooth tracker that pairs with an intuitive app that makes the status of a missing item go from lost to found. The Tile App uses location services to tell you the exact location of the your tracker. You can attach them to almost any item, particularly useful the ones that always seem to disappear. Plus, if your lost item is less than 100-feet away, then you can signal an alert from your phone or the app and the tile will ring. This makes finding the remote or your car keys a lot easier and saves you the trouble from turning the living room upside down. Its functions even work in reverse, meaning you can press the button on the tile and your phone will ring. Neat.
Tile cares about the cybersecurity of your personal information, so if someone reaches your house keys and tile tracker before you do, Tile has taken great efforts to reduce the risks of unauthorized access and disclosure of your personal information through a simple method – not collecting that information in the first place. So, that individual who found your keys won’t be able to source your address and help himself to your stuff.
3. Sesame Smart Lock
We reach for our smartphones much often than we reach for our keys. Sesame Smart Lock is one of the simplest smart locks on the market that allows you to turn your smartphone into your keys. With an installation that only takes a few seconds and a command strip, you’ve just tapped your way into your home. If a friend or family member needs access but you don’t have a spare key, it’s perfect for easily programming temporary access from the app.
Another one of its cool features is you can unlock your door by literally just giving your phone a double-knock on the outside of your pocket. You can also unlock your door via voice control through Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, or Apple’s Homekit. Just open the app and say “Open Sesame” and your door is unlocked. (Now we get it.) Save yourself from the hassle of fishing for the keys in the bottom of your backpack or purse or (shame on you) hiding a spare key under the doormat or flowerpot.
As a bonus, you can also purchase the “optional access WiFi point.” A small plug-in that can be setup in any outlet nearby to your door, so you can monitor the activity of Sesame smart Lock from your smartphone no matter where you are. It’ll notify you every time someone enters the house, so it’s much easier to keep an eye on expected or unexpected guests. Lastly, the Sesame Smart Lock uses hefty AES-256 and TLS 1.2 encryption. You don’t ever have to worry about unwanted visitors hacking into your home.
4. Blink Home Security Cameras
Have you ever needed to be two places at once? For instance, keeping a close eye on a package’s arrival to your doorstep while you’re in a board meeting or maybe even a nanny cam while you’re away from the house for the weekend? Blink Cameras are the perfect second-set of eyes. Their outdoors cameras have cutting-edge features, such as infrared night-vision, so you can see what’s going on anytime of day, and water-resistant lenses, so you’ll have an HD view for whatever the forecast has instore. The technology behind blink cameras knows you cannot be watching all of the time so they have sensory motion capabilities that’ll put your mind at ease, such as the feature to detect movement in your home and sends alerts with HD video and audio right to your smartphone.
Blink’s default setting is configured to store all recorded videos on their secured servers in the cloud, never in the camera itself. Blink abides by the security policy of Amazon Web Services (AWS) for storage and servers. Blink cameras store up to 72,000 seconds of videos before wiping the recordings from the cloud. All video clips are encrypted using AES-256 encryption. You also have the option to download your video clips (within the storage timeframe) at any time from their servers through the Blink App
5. Re-Timer Light Therapy Glasses
Okay, we admit this gift isn’t necessarily a cybersecurity-related gadget, but we think it’s pretty cool. Have a friend that travels frequently? Maybe you know someone who has trouble sleeping? (We’re thinking of our friends on incident response teams.) The Re-Timer can help. These futuristic glasses emit a green-blue light therapy that has a positive effect on your sleep pattern and will regulate your internal clock. The Re-Timer is scientifically proven and backed by 25 years of research to “re-time your body clock.” What’s great about these funky glasses is you only have to wear them for 60-minutes and you’re set for a rejuvenating slumber. It’s the perfect gift for that family member or loved one who could use a little bit more shut-eye.
A Gift For Yourself?
With all of this talk about treating others, consider treating yourself. CyberVista’s Live Online Certification Training Courses offer a great way to get that certification you’ve been eyeing for awhile. To make the decision a bit easier on your mind and your wallet, we have some great promotions and offer a payment installment plan.