Not-for-profits face higher cybercrime risks: Says Okta sustainability VP

Not-for-profit organisations experience greater targeting from threat actors due to sensitive data and a perceived lack of resources according to Okta’s VP social impact and sustainability, Erin Baudo Felter.

Erin Baudo Felter, VP social impact and sustainability, Okta

Despite cybersecurity and identity products working just as well for non-profit and for-profit organisations, Baudo Felter believes that access to these tools is the greatest barrier to uptake.

“Sometimes the challenge for non-profits is the resourcing and the capacity inside the organisation to be able to utilise technology,” she said.

“Threat actors know that they may not have the same resources to protect their data.”

Another barrier for charities and non-profits that can prevent investment in technology and in security is the perception from donors that all funds should be directed to the cause, rather than in optimising and protecting the organisation.

“Folks don't understand an effective non-profit organisation unless it looks like most of the money goes out the door. And it makes sense in theory, but when you actually look at what that does to organisations, it prevents non-profits from investing in themselves. It prevents them from investing in their own capacity, in their own staff, in things like technology especially, because they're so constrained with what they're allowed keep within their administrative costs,” said Baudo Felter.

“This actually starves organisations from the inside and that it ultimately does impact the way that they are able to achieve their mission later.”

Okta’s social impact arm Okta for Good is in its 6^th year, and originally launched at Oktane in 2016.

Since then Okta for Good has donated over $25 million in cash, tech and services to non-profit organisations.

According to Baudo Felter, “We actually have a programme where we donated 50 licences of our core products to non-profits totally for free. And we have many, many organisations around the world using those products, including in Australia. Actually, the Australian Red Cross is a great customer example, who is utilising Okta to make their employees and volunteers more efficient and secure in terms of how they access applications.”

The organisation also announced this year that it is contributing $1 million to a cybersecurity non-profit portfolio in order to improve the social sector’s response to cyber attacks.

Velvet-Belle Templeman travelled to San Francisco to attend Oktane22 as a guest of Okta.