When it comes to cybersecurity, it is tempting for nonprofits to
envy their for-profit counterparts' budgets, to wince and then
hope for the best. How safe a nonprofit is, however, need not
depend on how much it has to spend on IT upgrades. Rather, the most
important predicate to improved cybersecurity is whether that
organization's leadership commits to revamping work procedures
to reduce IT-borne risk.
The scary cyberthreats that nonprofits face arise in part from
the porous technologies that everyone – good, criminal or
careless – uses. The internet, computers and smartphones are
engineered to favor instant copying and transmission of data
– in volume, across networks and borders. Thus, security
technologies are an iffy exercise in retrofitting, conflicting as
they do with IT's bias in favor of openness, which bad guys so
often find ways to exploit.
