6 Ways to Keep Your Organization Secure

12 Oct 2015 11:19 PM

Comments 8

Like most nonprofits, your organization likely deals with a lot of data: donor contacts, details about the clients you serve, and data collected in the field. What if that data was compromised by malware, a virus, or a hacker? The right combination of security tools can help your organization stay locked down without getting in the way of your other tasks.

We think that every organization should make security a priority, and we want to help you do that by introducing some of the security tools in our catalog and sharing some helpful resources from our donor partners.

Symantec: Protect Your Organization

Whether your organization is large or small, the Symantec donation program at TechSoup offers a wide variety of products to help your organization stay secure. You can use Symantec Enterprise products to enhance security on multiple networked computers. You can use Symantec Norton products to enhance the security and performance of individual devices that are not part of managed corporate or enterprise networks.

Fortify My Org

If you think security is boring, we can prove you wrong. Check out Symantec's Kelley Bray in a fun, accessible security basics webinar for nonprofits and libraries.

Symantec also has quite a few security resources for consumers, including a fleet of blogs on a wide range of security topics.

Box: Secure Online Storage

Do you have staff spread out across different locations? Box lets you manage and collaborate on content with staff members and volunteers and distribute content to beneficiaries. If you've ever had any trepidation about how safe your documents actually are online, you'll be happy to learn that Box offers data encryption to help you keep your most important information locked down. Learn more about how Box does cloud security.

Beam Me Up to the Cloud

Box's Chief Trust Officer Justin Somaini wrote about why Box — along with other technology companies — is making cybersecurity a priority for 2015.

Bitdefender: Defend All Your Devices

The Bitdefender donation program at TechSoup offers antivirus, Internet security, and cloud-based management programs for both Mac and Windows computers. Bitdefender also has a mobile app for Android phones, available through TechSoup as well.

Secure All My Things

Check out Bitdefender's blog, Hot for Security, for the latest security news and tips.

Comodo: Strengthen Your Site's Security

Comodo not only offers Internet and endpoint security programs through TechSoup, but it also can help your organization's website stay secure with SSL certification, which is how your website gets the secure "s" in HTTPS. Read up on why SSL certification matters and whether you should migrate to HTTPS.

Comodo also has its own TV channel with video how-tos and security topics and news.

Mailshell and Red Earth: Spam Be Gone

The Mailshell donation program at TechSoup provides desktop spam filtering software to eligible nonprofits, charities, and public libraries throughout the United States. Read more about how you can reduce the spam that comes into your inbox.

Red Earth provides a suite of enterprise-level email filtering software called Policy Patrol Mail Security through the TechSoup donation program. Policy Patrol helps you prevent spam, phishing, network congestion, and confidentiality breaches at your organization.

Red Earth's Mike Spykerman wrote a blog post for us on the five steps to keep your email attachments secure.

More Security Resources

[Editor's note: this post was updated on October 20, 2015 to remove references to HIPAA compliance.]

Image: A. and I. Kruk / Shutterstock

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Ginny Mies is a Content Curator at TechSoup Global.

Comments

EvilNetworkOverlord

15 Oct 2015 4:05 PM

I have concerns about one of your above claims.

You say that Box is HIPAA-compliant. But TechSoup provides starter edition Box licenses. The Security section of the Box Privacy Policy, which shows Box's business model to include harvesting and selling user data, says "Unless you have purchased a Box Enterprise subscription account or higher, you agree not to upload to or collaborate through the Box Services any Personal Health Information as defined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 as amended (HIPAA)."

Could you please correct or clarify your claim of HIPAA compliance? This is of major importance to non-profits handling health or similarly private personal information.
agilbertknight

15 Oct 2015 4:22 PM

Thanks for the question. We're following up for clarification from Box and will post here as soon as we hear back.
shaughnyb

19 Oct 2015 10:34 AM

Thanks for your question about Box HIPAA compliance. With the Box Enterprise Edition a BAA (Business Associate Agreement) can be signed to be fully HIPAA certified. The lesser editions (including Starter Edition - donated ) are not fully HIPAA certified. We will update our product content accordingly. The TechSoup Starter Edition can be upgraded to the Enterprise plan at a 50% discount directly through Box.org.
EvilNetworkOverlord

19 Oct 2015 4:25 PM

It cannot be HIPAA-certified. There is no HIPAA certification of products. The statements being made here approach the definition of legal advice, and they are incorrect and misleading. For your protection and to prevent misleading your client organizations, I strongly recommend removing all references to HIPAA from both the product description and the above article.
agilbertknight

20 Oct 2015 9:19 AM

We make every effort to ensure that our content is factually accurate prior to publication and regret that we published incorrect information. As you noted, there is no HIPAA certification of products, so the references to "HIPAA-compliant" and "HIPAA certified" were incorrect. The blog post has been updated to remove references to HIPAA compliance. We will also be updating the Box product description and refining our editorial guidelines for how we talk about HIPAA on the site. Thank you for identifying the issue and helping us ensure our content is accurate regarding this important and complicated legal issue.
EvilNetworkOverlord

20 Oct 2015 12:43 PM

Thank you for your quick response and corrective action. Since the matter is now moot, please feel free to remove my comments from this thread.
gschaeff

11 Mar 2016 4:38 PM

Does TechSoup have any vendors donating encryption software? I am part of a free health clinic.
Laura_Kindsvater

14 Mar 2016 10:08 AM

Hi gschaeff, TechSoup doesn't currently have any vendors donating encryption software. Good idea! We'll keep an eye out for that possibility.

This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License.

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6 Ways to Keep Your Organization Secure

6 Ways to Keep Your Organization Secure

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