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.
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