14 December 2020
Know your enemy: The NCSC cyber threat assessment for small charities
The National Cyber Security Centre has identified the key threats that cyber criminals pose to small charities.
Cyber criminals are constantly on the lookout for new potential victims to target, and UK charities – particularly smaller charities – are extremely attractive to them, according to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) Cyber Threat Assessment.
That’s because charities hold funds, but also because they usually store financial and commercial data and personal information about the people donors and beneficiaries. All of this is highly valued by cyber criminals and other malicious actors – a fact which is not widely understood by many smaller charities, who do not see themselves as potential victims of cyber crime – and therefore do not take action to offset or mitigate these risks.
For that reason, many smaller charities do not carry out threat assessments, as they do not feel that spending money on cyber security measures to counter these cyber threats is a priority.