Image courtesy: Unsplash

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are around the corner. Over the years, I have bought discounted multi-user, multi-year packs of VPN software, a perpetual license for Shodan, and fancy domain names that are sitting idle (the ideas remained ideas!), Antivirus, WiFi cards, USB devices with encryption and many more.

This is a great time for buying some geeky stuff including security tools and services at discount for yourselves, family, friends and your employees. I have listed some of my favourite stuff that can enhance your cybersecurity posture:

Password Managers

like I mentioned here, I think password managers are still the most underrated tool when it comes to cyber security. We still have not transitioned from “remembering your password” to “passwords are not meant for remembering” mode.

Use the password manager in conjunction with a key or a token and then all you need to remember is just one password and the rest should be in a password manager on system or a browser. If not for a paid one, you can also opt for some good open source ones like Keepass.

If you are on Mac and iPhone, the inbuilt KeyChain acts as a multi-device password manager when used with Safari Browser.

VPNs

One of the first step to minimize your personally identifiable information is to encrypt and route all your traffic through a notable VPN service provider so that your local ISP is blind to your network activities and do not gather information about your browsing habits. Most vendors discount their products during Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales.

Privacy Filters

A gadget like Privacy Filter narrows the viewing angles and prevents shoulder surfing or snooping by others. This is a great addition for the sales and marketing teams and CXOs who are on the road and working out of cafes, airports, and other crowded places.

Hardware MFA tokens

It is been published that hardware MFA tokens (those that comply to the FIDO framework) are phish-resistant. You can popularise these in your offices instead of traditional soft MFAs. If not for all the staff due to pricing concerns, you can limit it to critical folks.

Webcam covers and stickers

I use a simple tape to cover my webcam and there are some stickers with toggle options. However, there were some screen breakage issues on macbooks when using the slightly thicker webcam covers. This even prompted Apple to issue an advisory

Software and Hardware Tools 

I remember having paid a dime for Shodan in one of the black friday deals few years back and its a great tool to get some intel on IP addresses. Similarly, some great hardware tools like Alfa wireless cards, pineapple express pentesting tools also shower great discounts during this time

Do comment and let me know what’s been your best Black Friday or Cyber Monday purchase. I have added few data privacy tools like onedelete, onerep, wearables in the forked repo:

https://github.com/gravityfuel/InfoSec-Black-Friday/

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