Small steps to cyber security: starting with passwords

Charities are using digital systems every day to deliver their services and keep in touch but with this capability comes a level of risk. Almost one in three UK charities experienced some form of cyber security breach or attack in the past year and only 18% of UK charities have some form of staff training in place to help their organisation stay safe online.

Giving your staff and volunteers the right awareness and training to spot cyber risks and take appropriate action empowers them to help make your organisation less vulnerable. To support this SCVO are launching a new cyber awareness campaign - over the next year we will help voluntary sector organisations communicate four key cyber security principles to their teams.

Training: little and often is best

It is important to talk about cyber security regularly and make it part of your no blame culture. ‘No blame’ means remembering that we can all get things wrong and it’s important that your team feel able to speak up when this happens - helping you tackle an issue before it becomes a more serious problem.
SCVO’s cyber awareness campaign is designed to help with this. Each quarter we’ll outline hints and tips to help promote one of following themes within your organisation:

• Strong Passwords
• Cyber Scotland Week
• Phishing
• Software Updates

We’ll provide regular reminders to help good cyber security habits stick. We hope you can include these in your organisation’s staff/volunteer updates, newsletters and other guides.
There are lots of entry-level training options out there that cover the basics of good cyber security – embed this free e-learning module for small organisations and charities into your own training materials or just share the link with your staff/volunteers to start learning.

Get started with strong passwords

Our first topic is one of the simplest ways organisations can protect their online data from unauthorised access – strong password management. It might sound like a job for IT but it’s something everyone in the team can help with.
Play this game to learn about why strong passwords are important…

Here are some simple password tips

• Use a Password Manager: A great tool to help your staff and volunteers do the right thing with passwords. It will enable your team to use passwords that are strong, separate for different accounts and stored safely – learn how to use browsers and apps to manage your passwords.
• Switch on Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Make it harder for cyber criminals to log on to your important accounts by adding an extra level of security (e.g. code sent to your phone) to verify its really you logging on - find out how to set up 2FA.

Good password habits aren’t complicated, share these with your colleagues and let them know about our lunchtime learning session in the new year.

And stay in the loop on all things cyber

If you want to keep up to date with cyber and hear about all our resources as soon as they are available, check out SCVO’s free online guidance and the new quarterly CyberScotland Third Sector Cyber Resilience bulletin.
Contact SCVO’s Cyber Resilience Co-ordinator, Alison Brogan, if you’d like support with creating a positive cyber security culture within your organisation. From board level to supporting your team in their everyday work, there is lots of free support available.