Yubico has teamed up with the University of Southern California (USC) and Freedom of the Press to teach journalism students about the importance of digital security. The training course will focus on security best practices, and will be a mandatory part of the curriculum for the aspiring journalists at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

To that end, Yubico notes that journalists are more likely to face online harassment and targeted cyberattacks, thanks largely to the public and highly political nature of the profession. Tools like Yubico’s YubiKey can help journalists secure their email and social media accounts, and protect sensitive files that are gathered through the investigative process.

The curriculum itself was developed by Freedom of the Press and USC Annenberg. Students will receive a YubiKey as part of their security training.

“The barrier to entry for harassing, doxxing, and sabotaging journalism is much lower than it used to be, and anyone — a state actor or a troll — can truly wreak havoc by stealing passwords, outing sources, or exposing personal information,” explained USC adjunct journalism professor Marc Ambinder.

“We aim to give our students not just the tools but an approach that they can use throughout their careers to better secure themselves, their colleagues and their sources.”

Yubico, of course, is best known as a provider of physical security keys for two-factor authentication. The company is a longtime supporter of FIDO’s passwordless security standards, as well as the eIDAS standards in Europe. Yubico recently released a new security key for iOS and MacOS devices, and launched a new Login for Windows Application.  

Yubico also unveiled its first biometric security key in November. The new YubiKey Bio has a built-in fingerprint sensor that allows users to leverage their own fingerprints to add an extra layer of security during the authentication process.