Do the thing. Yes, that thing.

We here at the 'Tea spend a lot of time thinking about cybersecurity trends so you don't have to. Every morning I trawl my favorite cyber news sources and try to connect the dots, then turn that into a newsletter that actually fits the moment we're living in.

Honestly, I could write this thing twice a day right now. Things in the cybersecurity world are escalating fast, and you deserve explanations for all of it. But here's the thing: as much as I want to nerd out about the cool, scary stuff, what matters more right now is harm reduction. Boring? Maybe. Important? Extremely.

I've talked to a lot of you in person, and the story's always the same: you fully intend to do the thing, you're just busy. I get it. But people are getting hurt right now because of how volatile the cyber world has gotten, and "I'll get to it" isn't a safety plan. You need to take steps today to keep you and yours safe. I know it's about as fun as doing your taxes. It is also, unlike your taxes, something you can't put off until April.

This should take you about two hours. (Grab a cup of your favorite comfort caffeine, and do the thing.)

Vivaldi has a learning curve — there are a lot of customization options, and you will get a little lost at first. That's fine. As I mentioned in The Old Internet Isn't Gone, we all need to make better choices about our technology, and stop quietly funding companies whose entire business model runs on harvesting your data and selling your attention to the highest bidder. Vivaldi is one of the better choices you can make — it's a browser that's actually on your side, instead of just pretending to be.

This is a maintenance activity. Consider adding it to your monthly Internet Hygiene Date. (Yes, that's a thing. Yes, you should have one.)

We posted this excellent piece from our friends at 404 Media the other day: ICE Appears to Be Buying Immigrants' Tax Identifiers from a Data Broker.

Chilling, right? That's not a hypothetical. That's what happens when your data sits around in a broker's database, for sale to literally anyone with a credit card.

Drop everything. Read this: They're going to keep selling it. Here's how to keep deleting it.

Then pick one thing off that list, and do it. Two weeks from now, do another. Chip away at the mountain of your own data until there's nothing left but dust. Getting your data out of the hands of people who profit off it at your expense isn't a nice-to-have. It's digital safety and physical safety, and right now, those are the same thing.

Set calendar reminders. Block off time. Call a friend and body-double the activity — it works better than you'd think to have someone else just be there while you do the thing. There are a million hacks for getting yourself to actually follow through. This newsletter's shorter than most because I genuinely just need you to focus: get those two things done. Then keep that same level of vigilance going for the rest of your digital life.

It's not glamorous work. Nobody's writing thrillers about the person who finally deleted themselves from Spokeo. But the people doing the boring, unsexy work of locking down their digital lives right now? They're the ones who'll be fine later. Be one of them.

CybersecuriTea is a free, plain-English guide to digital safety, designed for families, friends, and the folks you love. Subscribe today and get weekly tips to help keep your digital life secure.

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