No matter how much you prepare, cybercrime is a threat to every charity. According to Qlic IT, the nonprofit sector ranks as the second most targeted industry for cyber attacks. And the government’s annual cyber security breaches survey reported that 28% of charities had experienced a breach or attack in the last 12 months – that’s around 57,000 registered charities.
The impact of any one breach can be significant, and can mean loss of revenue, reputational damage, or even service disruption. And if you’ve had a difficult past experience of dealing with a cyber attack, you might worry even more.
While it might be tempting to avoid the issue, it will be helpful to learn how to manage your cyber security anxiety. By creating a fear-free culture around cyber security, you and your colleagues will be less stressed, and able to act quickly, calmly, and confidently if you should ever be attacked.
Build your cyber security knowledge and resilience
To increase your charity’s cyber resilience, you’ll need to take a good hard look at the potential risks. While that might trigger some anxiety, it’s far better to prepare well for a cyber attack than to just hope it will never happen. But be aware if looking at those risks tips into imagining worst case scenarios and worrying about them.
Leaders should spend time carrying out a cyber security risk assessment and creating a strong plan of action for how to deal with an attack. This will help your charity to get back on track as quickly as possible. The NCSC has a helpful guide to planning your response to a cyber incident.
Once you have an action plan, practise it – maybe even with any partners or service providers. Hopefully, you’ll never need to put your plan into action, but knowing that there are set steps to take in an emergency, can help to put your mind at ease and make you more effective should you have to.
Practice mindfulness
Worrying about something happening doesn’t affect whether that thing will happen or not, it will just build stress and anxiety in your body. And that’s definitely not going to help.
Mindfulness is one way to help manage stress. Essentially, this means being here, now. Practising mindfulness can help to build resilience over time, for example by regularly using a guided meditation or using breathing techniques to calm your heart rate and ground yourself. A little practice, every day, can make the world of difference.
Mindfulness can also help if you’re feeling overwhelmed in the moment. One easy way to quickly ground yourself is to name, out loud if possible, five things you can see, five things you can hear, and five things you can feel. Or you could simply take a few deep breaths while focusing on your feet being firmly on the ground. The Mental Health Foundation has a helpful guide to get you started.
Remember it’s everyone’s responsibility
If you’re feeling anxious that the weight of cyber security is all on your shoulders, take a breath. Everyone in your organisation shares the responsibility and needs to play their part. That might include using strong passwords, changing them regularly, and avoiding clicking on links that look suspicious. While there are things organisations can do to support that – for example, providing training or using two-factor authentication – there’s only so much that can be done. Know what you can control and acknowledge what you can’t.
Encourage a blame-free culture
As an organisation, nurturing a blame-free culture around cyber security can help to reduce worries and build people’s confidence. As the NCSC points out, no matter how much you advise people not to click on bad links, sometimes they might need to click on links from unfamiliar domains to be able to do their job.
Accepting that sometimes mistakes happen, and moving away from blame and fear, can help people to feel more comfortable if they’ve made a mistake. Feeling able to report it quickly and without embarrassment, means that any potential damage can be minimised.
And if you are unfortunate and become victim to a cyber attack, there are certain steps you’ll need to take – to contain the attack, work out the damage, and fix the problem. To do those things you’ll need a clear head, calm attitude, and confident approach. Managing anxiety around cyber security – within a blame-free culture – will put you in the best position to manage a crisis well.
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