In the face of increasing threats of targeted state surveillance, cyber and online attacks on the watchdogs of society, journalists and activists have been charged to take their digital security as serious as they take physical security.
This was the call of Executive director of Human Rights Journalists’ Network, Kehinde Adegboyega at the two-day Digital Security and Resilience Workshop organized for journalists, activists and civil society organisations.
According to Adegboyega, one of the lifeblood of journalism are the sources we speak to, so if the sources are not convinced of their security while speaking to journalists because they can be surveilled by state actors then journalists are out of business.
According to him, journalists need to be intentional about securing their digital devices from threats like spyware and malware attacks, website attacks and other cyber attacks.
He advised that journalists should always embrace any new tool or techniques that can help secure their devices from threats of breaches and attack.
Participants at the two-day workshop were trained on digital security topics like online privacy and security tips, safe browsing, secure messaging, passwording, password management, and physical device security.
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The facilitators also spoke on state surveillance techniques and practices, Information Access Control, social media use and privacy concerns, common online threats and attacks and other core knowledge topic for digital security.
The participants were also introduced to Podus AI, an artificial intelligence legal assistant, a VPN for safe browsing and other OSINT tools for digital security and a practical session on creating a security policy for organisation was done.
Facilitators of the workshop include Israel Olatunji Tijani, a data scientist and Cyber security expert and the developer of ChatVE, an AI factchecker, Blessing Oladunjoye an Investigative journalist and publisher of BO News, Godstime Agho, a software engineer and security expert, Oluwadamilare Ayankoya, Tech lead at Citizen’s Gavel, Kehinde Adegboyega ED HRJN and Shakirudeen Bankole, a journalist and communications officer of HRJN who moderated the event.
Executive Director of Media Career Development Network, Mr Lekan Otufodurin who is also a member of HRJN’s Board of Trustee advised participants to make good use of the knowledge gained at the workshop to improve their work as media professionals.
Speaking with journalists at the end of the workshop, Adegboyega implore journalists to also start reporting and spotlighting the harms of unlawful state surveillance and attacks especially on the journalists and activists and advocate for its end.
The workshop was organized with support from the West Africa Civil Society Institute, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and in partnership with Citizen’s Gavel, ChatVE, Digitup Solutions and BO News.