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Ever try explaining your job to someone outside of IT and feel like you’re speaking Klingon?

I’m kicking off a little series: “Explain it to a 5-Year-Old” because if we can break it down that simply, we can explain it to anyone (and it’s a fun brain exercise too).

So let’s start with this one: how would you explain malicious code to a 5-year-old?

:shield: And because stopping malicious code is just as important as understanding it, we’ve put together a blog post full of resources on how to recognize it and block it before it wrecks your day.

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It’s like speaking bad words to an adult. You’ll upset the system and get your mouth washed out with soap (anti-virus)!

or

When you go outside in the cold and then get sick, it’s a lot like that…going out in the cold is clicking on sus links or opening bad attachments. Then, your PC gets sick and you have to clean it up!

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Malicious code is a bunch of naughty instructions that get business into trouble when one of their computers follows them.

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What is malicious code?

  1. In order to understand that, you would need to understand what is “Malice”. Malice is "The intent to hurt, harm willingly and planned; similar to a person walking up to you and purposely knocking your ice cream on the ground just so you can not eat it and will be sad.
  2. What is code? Code can be one or more instructions given to a computer to perform a task; it can be from creating a 'Beep" sound to more complex like calculating the oxygen supply, food, water, fuel, and speed needed for the trip to the planet Neptune and back; such that you land exactly in the same spot when your 7 friends launched your spaceship, in 8 years. Because a Computers are robots; they don’t "Think"for themselves and only follow instructions no matter where they get them. With malicious code, which can be part of a picture, song, game, or even a link you think might open the website you intend to visit, may open another website that may download other malicious objects like an image or song that harms the files on your computer, or the computer code necessary to run your computer.
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5-year Old? Interesting twist to the Feynman Technique.

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Malicious code is like spoiled milk in you favorite bowl of cereal . At first, everything looks good and tasty, but if you take a bite the spoiled milk can ruin the cereal and make you feel sick.

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Sharks are malicious.
Malicious code are sharks hiding in programs.

OIP-1873696131
OIP-1873696131474×266 19 KB
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There is a difference trying to explain something to someone who does not have a grasp on language VS someone that does not want to understand.

Does the 5 year old understand “malicious” and “coding” ?
VS
Stopping someone trying to access “adult sites” regardless ? Or someone who thinks it is normal to send & forward jokes that may be in the form of links to sites or click bait ?

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So, this is universal threat huh :rofl:

Great descriptions!

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:white_check_mark: :white_check_mark: :white_check_mark:

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This feels like a bit much for a 5 year old, but I know better than to underestimate a kid.

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My 5 year-old self would’ve been absolutely terrified.

What if they’re not afraid of sharks tho :thinking:

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Just the scenario where they don’t understand what it means rather than playing dumb

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But the plain truth is that these people do not need to be 5 year olds…how about techs or IT pros that have been in IT for years or decades ??

What if we try to tell people that even looking at a picture sent in chats, watsapp, emails or pop-ups can or might have malicious codes ?

  • data or information can be added into jpegs (like Exif that have GPS coordinates etc)
  • the software that opens the picture (eg in Chrome for email or chat apps) might be able to extract the above said data and if any vulnerability (maybe not yet announced) could launch the data into codes ?
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