Secure the Generations Toolkit

Download Secure the Generations Toolkit (ZIP, 5.07MB)Last updated: 07 Oct, 2025

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The Secure Generations Awareness Toolkit, published by SANS for Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2025, provides a set of free resources to help households, classrooms, and workplaces have cross-generational conversations about online safety. The toolkit includes an awareness poster, an 8-question family cybersecurity quiz, and four generational tip sheets covering Child/Pre-Teen, Teen/Young Adult, Gen X/Millennial, and Senior/Baby Boomer age groups, each identifying the specific threats that group faces and how other generations can help.

Key content by generation:

Child/Pre-Teen (born 2013–2020, approx. ages 5–12): Face risks from impersonators posing as gaming friends or influencers, fake in-game reward links, and predators attempting to build trust; recommended habits include only chatting with parent-approved contacts and never sharing real name, school, or location in usernames
Teen/Young Adult (born 2000–2012, approx. ages 13–25): Face social engineering through fake profiles, sextortion, phishing links in DMs, and account takeover from weak or reused passwords; recommended habits include keeping accounts private and never sending explicit images regardless of trust
Gen X/Millennial (born 1965–1999, approx. ages 26–60): Face phishing disguised as invoices or work requests, credential harvesting through fake login pages, and tech support scams; recommended habits include using a password manager and enabling MFA everywhere possible
Senior/Baby Boomer (born 1945–1964, approx. ages 61–80): Face phone scams impersonating banks or family members, romance scams, and voice cloning attacks mimicking loved ones to solicit money; recommended habits include letting unknown calls go to voicemail and never sending money without independently verifying the recipient
The toolkit's family quiz covers 8 topics: verifying suspicious texts, password management, device updates, account security (MFA), reviewing shared personal info, incident response planning, privacy settings, and spotting fake messages or links
Quiz scoring runs from "Fresh Start" (0-2 points) to "Cyber Star" (12-16 points), designed to prompt discussion rather than pass/fail judgment

The toolkit's core premise is that cybersecurity awareness works best as a two-way, cross-generational exchange rather than top-down instruction. Each tip sheet includes a "How Other Generations Can Help" section, reflecting that teens can help seniors configure privacy settings while seniors can offer life lessons on trust and risk to younger family members, and children's innocent questions can prompt useful reflection from Gen X and Millennial parents.

FAQ

Seniors face phone scams impersonating banks or family members, romance scams, and voice cloning attacks designed to solicit money; SANS recommends letting unknown calls go to voicemail and having a trusted family member help verify suspicious requests before any money or information is shared.

Teens and young adults commonly face social engineering through fake profiles, sextortion, phishing links in direct messages, and account takeover from weak or reused passwords, according to the SANS Secure Generations toolkit.

Each generation brings different strengths: teens can help configure privacy settings for parents and grandparents, seniors can share life lessons about trust and reputation, and children can prompt useful reflection by asking simple questions about how to verify a suspicious message.

The SANS family cybersecurity quiz covers 8 areas: verifying suspicious texts, password management, device updates, multi-factor authentication, reviewing shared personal information, incident response planning, privacy settings, and recognizing fake messages or links.

Risk exposure varies by online behavior and life stage: children face predators and in-game scams due to trust and limited critical thinking, teens face sextortion and social engineering tied to social media use, Gen X and Millennials face phishing and credential reuse from juggling many digital touchpoints, and seniors are targeted with impersonation and urgency-based scams that exploit trust in authority.

Author

SANS Institute

Launched in 1989 as a cooperative for information security thought leadership, it is SANS’ ongoing mission to empower cybersecurity professionals with the practical skills and knowledge they need to make our world a safer place.