Dhaka, April 24: A three-day workshop (22-24 April 2019) on ‘Digital and Physical Security for Journalists’ ended here (CCDB, Hope centre, Savar, Dhaka) today urging journalists to practice increased safety and security to protect themselves from digital threats.
Speakers at the workshop observed that as journalists face an unprecedented risk from the spread of hackers and criminal groups and news outlets cover conflict and unrest, steps should be taken to increase safety and access to resources, including equipment and training in physical and digital security.
Organized by Bangladesh NGO Network for Radio and Communications (BNNRC) with support from Internews, the workshop was attended by 10 senior journalists representing print and electronic media organizations based in the capital and outside the capital. Syed Zain Al Mahmood, Country Director of Internews said, “The workshop is an opportunity to learn about the digital safety and security and how to protect journalists from digital threats. Digital security is a mindset. We strongly believe that this is a context sensitive knowledge driven media training program that would greatly contribute in preventing digital hazards in the digital era.”
As part of the best practices to protect information, news, sources and devices, the participants were exposed to sessions on how to safely protect emails and use internet, how cookies work, what are the top risks for digital security, solution of top risks, what are the safe internet websites, how to remove internet browsing history, what is incognito browsing, what is anonymity network, effective use of pseudonyms, how it protects identity of email account user, encrypting mails and hard-drive, hiding information with VeraCrypt and creating strong passwords and set up Password Managers. The training session was very interactive. The participants ask different questions on various issues related to digital security and the trainers provided answers of the questions.
Brian Conley, from USA, conducted the workshop where he also mentioned risks of tracking unprotected and unlocked information and data sent by emails and SMS. He strongly suggested authenticating mails before sending out mails. Brian has wide-range of international reporting experiences in many countries including war devastated Iraq.
The participants were later given certificates for participating in the workshop.