When security professionals work with nonprofit organizations (NPOs), our primary focus, understandably, is most often the protection of persons, facilities, and operations in the physical domain. Increasingly, however, we find ourselves shifting to looking at threats coming from the digital domain, where bad actors are stalking and targeting our clients and partners. In the COVID era, as cyber activities and digital footprints have increased exponentially, these cyber threats – and vulnerabilities – have grown in tandem. At the Secure Community Network (SCN), the official safety and security organization of the Jewish community, we saw a sharp increase in cyber threats in the early days of the COVID crisis, and we have seen these threats steadily rise ever since. In this respect, we have faced challenges similar to security professionals advising the full spectrum of faith-based and secular NPOs: how to frame cybersecurity strategies in a manner that both conveys the urgency of the threats and makes the solutions, and the necessity of their adoption, accessible to those who may find the topic arcane, intimidating, or abstract.
SCN’s CEO Michael Masters often reminds us…
