Library
A checklist differs from an article in that it can be printed and pinned up. There are four here, one page each, written for a person who has not studied the subject and does not intend to.
English version for the United States.
Family
The most effective protection inside a family is not configured on a phone. It is a handful of agreements settled in advance and out loud, because at the necessary moment the person will be alone and under pressure.
Open the checklist
Travel
Travel does not change the level of threat, it changes the cost of a mistake. At home a lost phone is an inconvenience; in another country it is the simultaneous loss of communication, money, documents and the means of restoring all three.
Open the checklist
Recovery
Recovery is only ever prepared in advance. At the moment access is already lost there is nothing to change the recovery contacts with and nothing to print the backup codes from, because that requires the very access that is gone.
Open the checklist
Breach
A letter saying your data appeared in a breach reaches almost everybody and almost always frightens more than it should. The useful work here is short and depends on what exactly leaked rather than on the size of the headline.
Open the checklistAn instruction assumes it will be read in advance and remembered. In practice people return to it at the moment something is already happening, and at that moment they read the first line rather than the text.
So every checklist here is built as a numbered order of actions where the first item is the most urgent. Everything that can wait sits lower.
The family checklist is written for a conversation with older parents and with teenagers rather than for a specialist. It contains no technical actions at all.
The travel, recovery and breach checklists are for somebody who will carry them out once and return to them only when something happens.
Four checklists and when each is needed
| Checklist | When it helps | How long it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Family | Before anybody calls your parents | One conversation |
| Travel | The day before departure | Twenty minutes |
| Account recovery | While you still have access | One evening |
| Data breach | The day the notice arrives | One hour |
Short pieces on everyday digital security published under the same name. Every link leads to the original source.