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Do you work for a charity or other non-profit? If so, you know that your organization collects all sorts of private information, including details about people you serve and financial information related to donors. Your own personal information, too, is probably in your organization’s employee records. Cyber criminals would love to get their hands on that data. You can help protect your organization using the information at FTC.gov/Cybersecurity.

At FTC.gov/Cybersecurity you’ll find resources on 12 different topics including cyber scams like ransomware and phishing, key considerations like physical security and vendor security, and more technical guidance on things like email authentication. The guidance in these new materials is based on the FTC’s expertise in the area of data security, privacy protection, and scam prevention. The materials are designed for small businesses, but the same tips and information apply to charities and other non-profits.  If you collect information about people, you need to protect it.

Imagine if your donors’ credit cards are exposed because of a phishing scheme, or if your network gets blocked by a ransomware attack. That can be devastating — not just for the organization and employees like you, but also for the communities that rely on your services. To help protect your organization’s network and data, make cybersecurity part of your business routine.

You can start with these basic cybersecurity tips:
•    Use security software and set it to update automatically
•    Back up important files offline, on an external drive or in the cloud
•    Encourage your organization to have policies covering basic cybersecurity and to train employees on those policies
•    Visit FTC.gov/Cybersecurity and share the fact sheet, quizzes and videos with your colleagues.

It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.

The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.

  • We won’t post off-topic comments, repeated identical comments, or comments that include sales pitches or promotions.
  • We won’t post comments that include vulgar messages, personal attacks by name, or offensive terms that target specific people or groups.
  • We won’t post threats, defamatory statements, or suggestions or encouragement of illegal activity.
  • We won’t post comments that include personal information, like Social Security numbers, account numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. To file a detailed report about a scam, go to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.

Ms. L
October 26, 2018
Now you tell us. Why didn't you post this information or instruction before? It would be nice to see this about every 3 months, at least!