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Charities can receive discounted cyber essentials certification during IASME’S Charity Cyber Essentials Awareness Fortnight (6th – 17th November 2023.)

Charities hold valuable data on beneficiaries, supporters, and volunteers as well as invoice and payment details. Criminals attack charities via the internet in the same way as they attack other organisations, seeking to steal information and money, deliver ransomware into their network or access their email account to impersonate them. Criminals will also try to access the organisations that supply services to the charity to gather information to launch a bigger, more targeted attack.

More charities than ever have moved their services online and their volunteers to working remotely, but over half do not have a digital strategy in place. This means the ways to cyber-attack charities have multiplied, yet many remain extreme vulnerable. With this in mind, there has never been a better time to get the key cyber security controls in place.

What can a charity do?

By achieving Cyber Essentials, a charity can demonstrate commitment to cyber security and protection of customer data. Charity Cyber Essentials Awareness Fortnight is about raising the profile of Cyber Essentials to charities and supporting them with guidance to help them through their journey to certification.

If you are a registered charity and you sign up and pay for Cyber Essentials between the 6th and 17th of November during Charity Cyber Essentials Awareness Fortnight, you will receive a discount to the price of certification. This discount is made possible by working in partnership with selected IASME Certification Bodies around the UK and Crown Dependencies. In addition to the discount, IASME will be offering free support and guidance to help charities achieve certification.

If you need help getting started on your Cyber Essentials journey, you can access the free Cyber Essentials Readiness Tool, developed by IASME on behalf of the National Cyber Security Centre. The Readiness Tool is an interactive set of questions that addresses different parts of your organisation’s security. Advice and guidance are available specifically for those in the charity sector and a step-by-step action plan is tailored to your requirements based on your answers to the questions. You will receive specific help in the areas that you need to address to achieve Cyber Essentials.

This year, over 100 Certification Bodies are joining IASME in the Charities Cyber Security Awareness campaign to offer a discounted price on Cyber Essentials. Gaining certification will help charities demonstrate that they have implemented the most effective cyber security controls in place which will help them defend their charity against most common cyber-attacks. Dr Emma Philpott MBE, CEO of IASME Consortium, emphasises the importance of supporting charities with cyber security:

“Our increasingly cashless world is driving a deepening reliance on technology which leaves charities particularly at risk to everyday cyber threats. Our Charity Cyber Essentials Awareness Fortnight hopes to educate charities about the cyber threat they face and help them understand the basic controls they can put in place to protect themselves. By supporting and encouraging them to achieve Cyber Essentials we help them demonstrate security to stakeholders and, for the small charities, make the most of the included cyber insurance. I’m delighted that so many of our Certification Bodies have joined us in making cyber security accessible to such an important sector.”

Charities wishing to take advantage of this promotion can apply from the 6th of November by contacting any of the participating Certification Bodies. You can also speak to the participating Certification Bodies should you require support with your assessment or your wider information security requirements. Find out more by visiting https://iasme.co.uk/cyber-essentials/cyber-essentials-for-charities/