Digital Security Articles & Newsletters

    New York Times newsroom

    Newsrooms, let's talk about Office 365

    Collaboration/team securityArticle

    Once upon a time, Microsoft Office provided a small suite of applications on your computer, including Word for writing, Excel for spreadsheets, and PowerPoint for presentations. But increasingly, modern newsrooms use Office 365 to access these tools over the web, alongside remote storage and team management software. While working on the web offers obvious advantages, many reporters also wonder about the privacy and security of this data. What about our most sensitive, unpublished details when reporting? What can Microsoft see?

    USC Annenberg school newsroom

    Freedom of the Press Foundation and USC Journalism School announce partnership on digital security

    AnnouncementsArticle

    Freedom of the Press Foundation and the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism are excited to announce an innovative partnership to develop comprehensive digital security education for journalism and communication students. Additionally, Yubico, a leading provider of hardware authentication security keys, will be providing YubiKey …

    A photo peering into a window of the French newsroom, Le Point, where reporters are working at their desks.

    Newsrooms, let’s talk about Google Workspace

    Collaboration/team securityGuide

    If you work in a newsroom, there’s a good chance you work with colleagues on Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and more. Google Workspace software is simple and powerful. But anyone working in a newsroom has probably asked themselves: What can Google see? What about our most sensitive conversations and documents? What about documents that concern our own unreleased reporting, or information on our sources?

    Art lab punch clock

    Leaking on the clock: What your sources need to know

    Source protectionArticle

    Last week, Eric Trump tweeted a screenshot of an email that circulated through the Trump Organization by Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold. Although the tweet sensationalized Fahrenholt’s emails, it should fall short of qualifying for reality TV levels of drama, since reporters do this sort of thing all the time. But are there other considerations to take in mind when reaching out to sources in their workplaces?

    default social card (URL location fixed)

    Digital security training course catalog

    Guide

    The Digital Security Training track currently offers a variety of courses covering the most salient and pressing issues facing journalists and technology in the current day. FPF offers courses in 90-minute, 3-hour, and full-day formats; in order to accommodate organizations requiring for more flexibility in scheduling. Some courses include hands-on …

    default social card (URL location fixed)

    Your password was breached. Now what?

    Account securityGuide

    Data breaches, and in particular those including personal passwords for websites or apps, are evergreen news stories that repeat themselves like an Advent calendar for cybersecurity failures. Although these breaches are a regular phenomena, they are trailed by a long, drawn-out window of time where other attackers use breached data …

    default social card (URL location fixed)

    Proton Mail like a pro

    Communication securityGuide

    Proton Mail is a Switzerland-based email client that offers end-to-end encryption between its users by default. This means that communication between anyone whose email is managed by Proton Mail can only be viewed by members of that party; No outside parties, including Proton Mail itself, can view the content of …

    default social card (URL location fixed)

    Verifying open source software

    File securityGuide

    Verifying software should be your first priority whenever you download a new piece of software. If you are downloading software by verified individual developers or an organization like Apple or Microsoft, the verification process is handled for you. However, you may want to use software built by developers who haven’t …