I appreciate the media, such as movies and television shows, for bringing the importance of securing our private data to the public view. The unfortunate side effect is that most of the time, processes and strategies are oversimplified to keep the story moving. It is only natural that directors would want to over-dramatize the maliciousness of a cyber attack with complicated jargon to make the incorporation of technology more impactful; however, this can distort the public perception of how cyber attacks are conducted.

I think the media creates a fantasy that can unfortunately become someone else’s reality if they are not knowledgeable on the subject. For example, in the spear phishing segment of the video, a hacker used a device to brute force a password that would have realistically taken much longer than it did. This could make hacking look too easy and degrade the belief that strong passwords matter.

Insider. (2021, March 16). Hacker rates 12 hacking scenes in movies and TV | how real is it? | insider. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=6BqpU4V0Ypk