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PEN America: There’s a great deal you can do to reclaim power and control over your safety online. We recommend that journalists take some time to do the following.
Account Security: Make a list of your top ten most sensitive accounts; think personal and professional email, social media, cloud storage, and banking. Then take the three steps below to protect your most sensitive accounts from abusive tactics such as hacking and phishing.
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For each account, set up a long, complex, unique password with at least 16 characters. Think of your password as the first lock on your front door.
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For each account, turn on multi-factor authentification (MFA) using an authenticator app like Duo or Authy. MFA requires you to use a pin to prove you’re trying to log into your account rather than some hacker. Just remember to save your MFA backup codes somewhere safe so you can still log into your accounts even if you lose your cell phone. Think of MFA like the second lock on your front door.
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Set up a password manager to help you keep track of all of your passwords and MFA backup codes. Here are three good options: 1password (which provides free accounts for journalists), Dashlane, and Bitwarden.
Social Media Safety & Privacy: Make a list of all of the social media platforms you use (think X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky but also LinkedIn and Venmo). Log into each account and tighten the privacy and safety settings; many journalists don’t realize that platforms default your settings to be as public as possible. And review what content is publicly visible on your platforms.
- Do you want everyone to see your birthday, which a hacker can then use to authenticate your identity?
- Are you sure you want to share your home address or the name of your child’s school, which can be used to dox you and your family?
You can find step-by-step guides for cleaning up your social media accounts via our Digital Safety Snacks and the New York Times’ handy checklists.
Read on for more digital safety tips from PEN America.
Watch: Bellamy-Walker recently joined an Institute webinar on how to handle (and prevent) online threats as a journalist.
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