BRF-DESK / About
About Departmentofinternetsecurity
Departmentofinternetsecurity is an independent, public-interest publication that explains online threats in plain English. We started it because most security advice is written for people who already work in security, and the people getting scammed mostly don't.
Who we write for
Families and parents. Older adults and the relatives who help them. Teachers and students. Nonprofits, churches, charities and volunteer groups that run on donated laptops and shared passwords. Small businesses and professional-service firms without an IT department. Freelancers, remote workers and anyone who has ever stared at a text message wondering if it's real.
Our home base is South Carolina's Grand Strand, from Myrtle Beach to Conway, but the threats we cover don't respect borders, so we write for English-speaking readers in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia and beyond.
What we cover
- Internet Safety: Most online trouble starts on a normal day: an update you put off, a download from the wrong site, a shared tablet nobody locked.
- Phishing: Phishing is a message pretending to be someone you trust so you'll click, sign in or pay.
- Online Scams: Every scam is a story with a deadline.
- Password Security: The biggest password problem isn't weak passwords.
- Multi-Factor Authentication: Multi-factor authentication means a stolen password isn't enough on its own.
- Account Protection: Your email account is the master key, because password resets for everything else land there.
Alongside those sections we cover identity theft, data breaches, email and website security, ransomware awareness, safe payments and incident-response basics for small organizations.
How we write and check
Every briefing answers the same five questions: what is it, how does it happen, how would I recognize it, how can I prevent it, and what should I do if it already happened. Jargon either gets cut or translated on the spot.
We cite real, checkable sources such as the FTC, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, national regulators and established security reporters, and we link to them so you can check our work. If we aren't sure a fact is true, we leave it out. When we get something wrong, we correct it and note the change.
Some things we never publish: malware, phishing kits, credential-stealing or unauthorized-access techniques, ways to bypass security controls, leaked personal information, or accusations against alleged attackers without evidence. We don't promise that any single product makes you completely safe, because none does.
We are not a government agency, law enforcement, or affiliated with either. If you're dealing with a crime, contact your local police and the official reporting services we link to.