Working and reporting from the field can be very stressful, especially when it comes to high-risk events, such as protests or demonstrations, or environments such as war or disaster zones. When you find yourself in a public place, make sure not to leave your computer unlocked or unattended, as it will be an easy target for any bad actor.

In case you frequently travel or do a lot of field work which requires you to carry your work laptop with you, strongly consider encrypting its hard drive. When the disk is encrypted, the OS installed on the hard drive cannot boot without a password. MacOS has FileVault, Windows has Bitlocker, and VeraCrypt as a third-party application also offers the system encryption option. Finally, be very careful with your devices during events that could turn violent, such as protests, as they can be stolen, damaged, or accessed by a bad actor.