Cyber security threats are for life, not just the Winter Olympics

With the Winter Olympics about to start there have been a number of stories pointing out the security risks of people using their mobile devices in Sochi.

Writing in a blog post, Paul Proctor, vice president and analyst at Gartner says it's important to remember that you're not really safe anywhere and it's your behavior that's the key factor in your security.

In particular he highlights a recent NBC News story which carried out an experiment in Sochi and which says, "Visitors to Russia can expect to get hacked," as being misleading.

Proctor says, "...everything they describe in the story is as equally true at your local Starbucks as it is in Sochi. Therein they miss the opportunity to present a more accurate picture of global security, as opposed to the 'evil Russians'".

He points out that none of the threats covered in the story require the hackers to actually be in Russia. The threats were not location dependent and NBC waited until the end of the story to point out that you shouldn't click on links you don't recognize from people you don't know.

The NBC story is a missed opportunity to point out that cyber security is a matter for everyday life, and Proctor encourages the news team to repeat their experiment in a Manhattan coffee shop.

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