Now more than ever …. #CharityFraudOut

Earlier this week, the NCSC took part in an instructive webinar entitled ‘Beyond COVID-19: Keeping your charity safe from fraud’, which is now available to view online on the Charity Fraud Awareness Hub – another great resource where you can access short tutorials, on-demand webinars and help sheets to help beat fraudsters.

The NCSC was joined on the webinar by colleagues from the Charity Commission, Fraud Advisory Panel, Charity Finance Group, Cancer Research UK, and the Small Charities Coalition to provide a broader view of the threats facing the sector.

The webinar explored what the risk landscape might look like in the next 6–12 months from a range of perspectives and outlined some of the big issues that charities should think about how to prepare. Some of the key take-away messages include:

• The need to revisit and review policies, controls and processes that may have been introduced as part of crisis management response at the start of lockdown that may now need tightening.
  
  
• Getting mitigation strategies in place can make a huge difference in protecting against fraud and cyber crime. Preparation is the key and the NCSC has published advice encouraging trustees to have essential cyber security discussions.
  
  
• Phishing and ransomware continue to remain prevalent threats:
  
  
  • Take time to check your systems are patched/updated and back up your data – patching and backing up data can be done automatically and doing this remains among the most effective ways to protect your charity from ransomware and other forms of cyber crime
    
    
  • Every charity is susceptible to cyber crime and can be caught up (and caught out) by mass phishing campaigns or malicious software
    
    
  • Everyone, at every level, has some responsibility for cyber security. It needs to be entrenched throughout the organisation, starting with the board
    
    
  • It is important to know your supply chain and what security they have in place too

Guidance on how to mitigate the threats from phishing and ransomware can be found on our website.

Fraudsters will try to pressurise you into taking decision that are not in your best interests or those of your colleagues and organisations. The NCSC encourages you to be fraud aware, take time to check and in doing so you will help keep your charity safe

Learn More

Learn more about how you can prevent fraud affecting our organisation with expert-led charity guidance from the NCSC