With fewer resources at their disposal and tighter budgets to consider, churches, nonprofits, schools and camps become prime targets for cyberattacks. "From our work with a range of nonprofits, schools, camps and houses of worship, we know no one is immune to cyberattack — and smaller organizations with limited resources and tight budgets might be at greater risk," Nick Vaernhoej,
Church Mutual's chief information security officer, said in a release.
Cybersecurity platform provider
StrongDM reported small businesses and organizations with limited resources are seen as having weaker security measures, which is alluring to hackers. On top of this, nearly 60% of small businesses have no cybersecurity protections because they feel the organization is too small to be targeted. However, small business employees experience 350% more social engineering attacks than those at larger enterprises, according to StrongDM. Further, small businesses are more frequently targeted by malicious emails. This comes at a time when risk managers worldwide are pointing to cyber as the biggest threat to their organization, according to
Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty's Risk Barometer. While the situation can seem overwhelming for smaller organizations, Church Mutual reported there are ways to enhance cybersecurity without busting the budget, which are highlighted in the above slideshow. "When it comes to IT security, prevention is a far easier task than dealing with the wide-ranging impact and potential financial fallout of a cyberattack," Vaernhoej said. "We urge all nonprofits, schools, camps and houses of worship to look at their policies and procedures now to protect themselves and their communities."
Related: