Charity Fraud Awareness Week – Let Us Show You How
Day 1
As we confirmed yesterday this week we are supporting Charity Fraud Awareness Week by share great advice and resources provided by organisations such as the Fraud Advisory Panel and the Charity Commission we are running our ‘Let us show you how’ campaign each day this week.
What does this mean?
Each day there will be great content and resources with some great advice – we are going to ‘show you how’ to convert that in to practical action that does not require any prior knowledge of managing fraud risks. We will ‘show you how’ you can integrate effective fraud risk management into your other risk management processes, compliance programs and operational procedures.
Each day we will provide a 5 minute digest to prompt discussion and challenge organisations to identify an action they are going to take to move things forward. By the end of the week you will therefore have 5 practical things you have pledged to do. If you choose to share those with us we can also send you a reminder each quarter to check how you are getting on.
Day 1 focus has been on Cybersecurity
The Fraud Advisory Panel have promoted a 10 minute video produced by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). The pre-recorded webinar identifies 5 simple steps charities can take to improve their cyber security:
- Ensure you backup your data regularly
- Keep anti-virus and other software updated with new security patches etc.
- Consider mobile device security – including warning staff about the dangers of using public wi-fi
- Remind staff of the latest advice regarding creating strong passwords (3 random words) and ensure two factor authentification is used on key accounts such as banking, email and social media.
- Avoid phishing attacks by reminding staff of the dangers of clicking on links in emails even if it appears to be from a genuine source – this includes the widely publicised CEO payment diversion type frauds.
Further advice is contained in the previously issued NCSC Cyber Security: Small Charity Guide. Don’t be fooled by the title this guide does in fact cover advice relevant to charities of all sizes.
Our previous blog posts have also covered aspects of managing these risks;
- the first two regarding having an effective response plan in place; ‘Would Your IS Helpdesk Recognise a Cyber Attack?’ and ‘Tip 9 – Planning your response to fraud‘
- the third relating to the people element of the risk; ‘Cybercrime – it’s a human problem!‘ identifying that although this is a risk it can also be a key part of the solution!
So to the challenge we set ourselves this week – our ‘Let us show you how’ and also utilising our experience from across other sectors. For this we turn to a campaign run by the Financial Fraud Action (UK) Ltd (FFA) and its ‘Take 5’ campaign which was initially aimed at the banking and payments industry. The campaign is backed by City of London Police and CIFAS. Take Five is a national awareness campaign led by FFA UK (part of UK Finance), backed by Her Majesty’s Government and delivered with and through a range of partners in the UK payments industry, financial services firms, law enforcement agencies, telecommunication providers, commercial, public and third sector, urges you to stop and consider whether the situation is genuine – to stop and think if what you’re being told really makes sense. There are a number of resources available through its website and organisations can use these to help raise awareness and remind staff to pause and think before they click!
Our quick tip (first published 2 years ago but still relevant!) is to encourage staff to download one of the template email signatures and add it to their email signature. That way every time they send an email it will be a reminder to the recipient (and themselves) to always ‘take 5’.
How do I get more ‘Let Us Show You How’ information?
There a 3 easy ways:
- We will be posting updates on our website during fraud awareness week so simply visit our news feed each day, or
- Follow us on the usual social media platforms using the buttons at the top of the page, or
- Subscribe to our special mailing list using the contact form below and we will deliver the content direct to your mailbox each day.
What next?
Each day we also said we would challenge organisations to identify an action they are going to take to move things forward. By the end of the week you will therefore have 5 practical things you have pledged to do. If you choose to share those with us we can also send you a reminder each quarter to check how you are getting on. So what will you choose – one of the actions identified by the NCSC or perhaps our ‘take 5’ tip? The choice is yours….!
We will be liking and retweeting other posts so please join us in keeping #charityfraudout.
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