Microsoft Launches Security Program for Nonprofits

Microsoft today announced its new Security Program for Nonprofits, a set of security tools built to complement its security suite and offer monitoring, attack notification, risk assessment, and security training for nonprofit organizations as threats targeting the sector continue to rise.

In its "2021 Digital Defense Report," Microsoft found nongovernmental organizations and think tanks were the second-most targeted sector by cybercriminals and made up 31% of all notifications of nation-state attacks on organizational domains that Microsoft detected.

The services in this program include AccountGuard for Nonprofits, which alerts organizations when Microsoft 365 organizational accounts, or the Outlook and Hotmail personal accounts of staff and board members, are targeted or compromised by nation-state attackers. AccountGuard is now being offered to eligible nonprofits at no additional cost, Microsoft says.

Nonprofits will also have access to free security assessments to help them understand the flaws in their endpoints, identity access, infrastructure, network, and data. The goal here is to help them create a remediation plan to protect their environments.

As far as employee training, Microsoft says employees can access materials to learn how they can protect themselves from online attacks and work from home more securely. IT admins will have access to the Security Skilling Hub and Microsoft 365 Administrator's Security Toolkit via the program's page.

The goal is to provide these services to 10,000 organizations within the first year and 50,000 within three, Microsoft reports.

Read more details here.