Information Security For Churches and Small Non-Profit Organizations

In today's ever changing, better, faster, cheaper world, connectivity to the Internet for churches and other small non-profit organizations is necessary. But, connectivity brings along with it a risk of vulnerability from the same threats that business and educational organizations face. Hackers and other harm-doers will not make an exception for these low budgeted and resource strapped organizations, and if an opportunity is found that can be exploited, you can bet someone, somewhere will exploit it. The potential reputation damage along with any physical damage that occurs can have a permanent impact on the hacked organization. If contributors are using credit cards to make donations and their card numbers are compromised, think of the potential loss of income that may never be recovered over the course of time. If personal information is accessed due to a lack of security measures, the harm to both organization and member may not be measurable in dollars; however, the emotional injury and loss of credibility may be catastrophic. Also, consider a hacker taking control of machines to deliver a distributed denial of service attack on another web site. Not only are these scenarios a possibility, but these things do happen, almost every day.