The Dangers of Malware within the Puerto Rican Family Home: Threats, Impacts, and Preventive Measures

Abstract

This paper presents ZeroDay Tech Labs, a bilingual, cybersecurity education platform built for Puerto Rican family homes. The project responds to a practical problem: families depend on phones, laptops, smart televisions, cloud accounts, and online services, but many lack a simple way to recognize malware related risk and act before damage spreads. The platform translates trusted cybersecurity guidance into plain language learning paths, printable actions, and controlled case studies. A pre-use survey of 27 respondents shaped the household focus, while a post-use survey of 20 respondents evaluated confidence, useful components, and practical steps. The paper summarizes the project framework, website implementation, survey evidence, defensive case studies, privacy and accessibility choices, and limitations. The result is an applied educational model that helps families slow down, verify suspicious prompts, choose safer actions, and recover with less panic when cyber threats appear.