Conexo: Getting to Know Their Work Fostering Security and Advanced Tech Skills in LATAM and Beyond
The Community Series features stories of the people and projects behind the digital rights community.
Mario Felaco, Conexo’s executive director and security specialist.
Conexo is an organization that works with high-risk groups, providing diverse types of security support services, security audits, and training so that groups can effectively mitigate security risks. Their work includes supporting NGOs, LGBTQ+ networks, independent media, and human rights defenders.
They constantly give back to the digital rights field by leading mentorship programs such as Infuse, helping develop the RAWRR platform tool for security auditors, and being active members of communities like CiviCERT and COSIC, which focus on strengthening civil society.
We talked with Mario Felaco, Conexo’s executive director and security specialist, to learn more about their structural analysis, how they evaluate their recommendations for organizations, and how they nurture advanced technical skills in the global majority.
How Conexo Started?
For several years, the founding partners of Conexo had been working together in the security and civil society space, where, among other things, they helped the digital rights field standardize training materials and processes. During this time, they recognized the need for security support in civil society and, in 2020, established their organization.
“We began to realize that cybersecurity threats were increasing worldwide, yet civil society lacked the necessary support to protect themselves, which was hampering their efforts to advance human rights. We founded Conexo to better contribute our part”, explains Felaco.
As a result, Conexo began offering a range of security support services tailored to the specific needs of organizations and networks. These services include providing security assessments in various formats, supporting the implementation of security protocols, and providing both short- and long-term digital security training to human rights defenders.
Expanding Their Services Well Beyond LATAM
As a Latin American-based organization, Conexo initially worked with groups in their region but soon expanded their collaborations to groups worldwide living under authoritarian regimes. Organizations based in Europe also began seeking their support.
“Working with groups experiencing acute security threats provides expertise that is both valuable and transferable. We’ve realized that repressive regimes—one of the main adversaries of the organizations we work with—follow a similar playbook regardless of their location. Coming from Latin America also gives us a perspective that adds value to our interventions, no matter where they are. Additionally, we have organically built an organization where everyone at the coordination level is a woman or LGBTQ+, which adds diversity and new perspectives to our work,” remarks Felaco.
The digital aspect alone isn’t enough to mitigate the risks faced by civil society organizations. To address this, Conexo has been integrating both physical and psychosocial aspects into every intervention. Internally, they have started implementing their own version of Team CommUNITY’s Digital Justice House recommendations, which includes objective-based work and unlimited vacation time. Additionally, every member of Conexo has access to therapy sessions.
Providing Organizations with Impactful Security Audits
One of the areas Conexo is known for is providing organizations with rigorous security audits, which offer a comprehensive assessment of an organization’s information systems to determine their security level. They examine a variety of factors, ranging from network vulnerabilities to how employees collect, share, and store highly sensitive information.
While focused on digital security, Conexo’s approach to assessments prioritizes people and processes, with some of the most important findings often being organizational, psychosocial, physical, legal, and more. Based on the audit, they can then provide the organization with customized recommendations or help adapt security controls and policies in the workplace.
Giving Back to the Field in Numerous Ways
In 2021, Conexo supported the digital rights field by helping develop the Risk Assessment Workflow for Recommendation Roadmaps (RAWRR)—a multi-platform application that assists security auditors and other organizational security specialists in collecting information and generating reports.
“Reporting has always been one of the biggest challenges in security assessments. This often results in either very simple reports that are not as helpful as they could be or longer reports that are very time-consuming to prepare. RAWRR helps simplify and automate some of this process, aiding in the creation of useful reports for the organization so they can more easily mitigate their risks,” says Felaco.
Conexo is also an active member of CiviCERT and COSIC - communities focused on helping civil society strengthen and build capacity,
Nurturing Advanced Technological Skills in the Global South, a Necessity
This Conexo’s digital security guides helps users understand the risks they face and what they can do to mitigate them. They are available in both English and Spanish
Conexo has been an incredible force in building up technical talent in Latin America and other areas of the Global South.
“It's really important to build up the next generation of experts in the Global South so that this specialized expertise is not concentrated in the Global North. The learning curve to access this type of expertise is steep. Mentorship and culturally competent training play a critical role, which is why we are so eager to share our knowledge and experience,” comments Felaco.
Mario adds that as security threats continue to rise worldwide, having experts in the Global South is crucial because they better understand the context of their regions, and also can more quickly and effectively respond to cases and incidents. Currently, most advanced technical expertise is centered in the Global North, which causes bottlenecks and other challenges when civil society organizations and activists in the Global South need support.
“There is a significant disparity in resources and services available to civil society in the Global South, where it is in fact needed the most. That’s why one of our main goals has always been to increase local capacity through training more trainers, auditors and,now, through the development of learning paths and mentoring in advanced technical skills,” says Felaco.
Besides providing comprehensive short and longer term digital security training, Conexo also has created, in Spanish, Digital Security guides and a variety of Tool Setup and Safe Use guides. These are great for learning both basic concepts and more advanced topics.
Infuse Mentor Program
They also take part in the Infuse mentor program where they help build up local capacity in LATAM. In this role, Conexo also helps with mentorship selection, and provides educational training in areas that go beyond basic digital security training, including:
Detecting malware on a device
Analyzing malware
Investigating malicious infrastructures
Web application security fundamentals/ hardening/ forensics/ incident response
Electoral Year and Security Recommendations for Journalists
Conexo published a valuable guide in Spanish titled Safety Recommendations During Field Coverage of Electoral Processes.
For their rapid response work, Conexo has worked mitigating risks for independent media outlets and organizations before, during, and after incidents that require immediate support. This has included evaluating, monitoring, and reinforcing platforms before the publication of specific articles that could attract cyber attacks.
“It’s well known that elections increase many of the risks faced by civil society organizations. Variables we study during threat assessments become more complicated, and the potential impacts and likelihoods increase. In addition to remaining vigilant in our incident response efforts, it’s more relevant than ever to take proactive measures,” shares Felaco.
In 2024, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela held presidential elections—some of which involved significant controversies and risks for voters and journalists. In response, Conexo published a valuable guide in Spanish titled Safety Recommendations During Field Coverage of Electoral Processes. The guide offers advice on what information should not be stored on devices, recommended mobile applications, guidelines for documenting events with Tella, and steps to take in case of communication blockages.
The Future of Digital Security in LATAM and the Global South
“Challenges seem to be increasing in Latin America and around the world, making it harder to sustain democracy and human rights. The work of organizations supporting civil society will be more important than ever, and we should aim to strengthen the bonds in our community,” emphasizes Felaco.
Connecting with Conexo
If you would like to contact Conexo, you can email them at info@conexo.org. For higher security in your messaging, you can use the GPG/PGP key available on their homepage, located at the bottom of the page.