Launching of the Digital Security Lab
Reporters Without Borders is launching a Digital Security Lab in Berlin to aid journalists facing online surveillance threats. The lab will analyze devices for signs of digital espionage, including examining suspicious messages and installed programs, providing support to journalists targeted for their work.
Reporters Without Borders (RWB) is an international non-profit public interest organization in France which has defended the promotion of freedom of information since 1985.
On 18 July, RWB will present its newly founded Digital Security Lab: a digital forensic laboratory that will help combat the threats of online surveillance. Based in Berlin, the Digital Security Lab is designed to analyze the devices of journalists who suspect they are under any digital surveillance. Journalists are a target of many threats that can affect their devices or personal social accounts for malicious reasons. This requires a rigorous and united response, and that is why any journalist will be able to contact the Digital Security Lab if they suspect they are the target of digital espionage because of their work.
Journalists often receive sophisticated phishing messages, and Digital Security Lab experts will search for clues with the analysis of suspicious messages to find out if they are for sent spying purposes. The team will also examine installed programmes and will check for other data traces that might offer traces about previous activities and spying technologies.