How a (Weirdly Chill) Celebrity Thinks About Personal Cybersecurity

At a promotional event in Times Square on Wednesday for the security company NordVPN, brand ambassador Shaquille O’Neal said he is eager to raise awareness among regular people about the importance of digital security and personal privacy.

“I have a video of me beating up Charles Barkley, and I wouldn't want the world to see that. That was a joke,” O'Neal says. “But everybody needs to have control of their own information.”

After being targeted by scammers who claimed that he was trying to buy a house and they were working on the transaction, O’Neal says, he realized he needed to learn more about cybersecurity and digital defense.

“I was hacked for the first time, not a bad hack, and I didn't know what to do,” he told reporters. “So I had to look into it. Once that happened, I really had to start paying more attention, because I would think nothing like that could ever happen to me, but it could happen to anybody.”

O'Neal, of course, is not just anybody. Still, the four-time NBA champion and media personality says that he doesn't have particularly sensitive data on his devices and tries to live a normal life as much as possible. When WIRED asked, though, whether he worries that he needs to take extra precautions to protect himself and loved ones as a result of his high profile, O'Neal said, “Yes, I think about it all the time, but I don't let it consume me, because if you let it consume you you can go crazy. But you have to be able to have great reactionary skills if something happens.”

A prolific tech investor who was early to AI, O'Neal emphasizes that the goal of his relationship with NordVPN is to inform the public and help people protect themselves. NordVPN is, well, known for its VPN. But the company has other offerings, including antivirus, threat detection, and scam-defense products that are geared toward accessibility for consumers. Marijus Briedis, the company's chief technology officer, says he was surprised by the findings of a recent NordVPN poll showing that 73 percent of Americans have an overconfidence in traditional antivirus and believe it can protect them against anything from identity theft to online tracking.

“The weakest link is between the computer and the chair, and I've been thinking so much about how to solve that problem,” Briedis told WIRED. “So the thing we are doing right now is focusing on education. It's a really interesting problem, how to do it in the best way. It's still haunting me in my dreams.”