Improve your Cyber Resilience: Cyber Grants now available to Scottish charities

SFHA is currently in the process of improving its cyber resilience to ensure that it can continually provide online and digital services that can be trusted for its members. A key step on SFHA’s cyber resilience journey has been to undertake a Cyber Essentials accreditation.

What is Cyber Essentials and why is it important?

The Cyber Essentials Scheme is a Government-backed standard in cyber security, enabling businesses to demonstrate that they both understand and address cyber risks.

Cyber Essentials helps organisations to guard against the most common cyber threats and demonstrate their commitment to cyber security. It’s a great way to audit and assess your cyber strengths and weaknesses, enabling you to plan improvements.

As part of the implementation of the Scottish Government’s Cyber Resilience Strategy, cyber accreditation may become a part of procurement conditions in the future.

The Scottish Business Resilience Centre provides a list of their trusted partners who can provide the accreditation.

SCVO Cyber Grants

SFHA has been liaising with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. SCVO is working with the Scottish Government to help third sector organisations improve their cyber resilience by running a small cyber grants scheme to support organisations through this process.

The grants help third sector organisations to meet the costs of preparing for and receiving the Cyber Essentials accreditation. Eligible organisations can receive up to £1,000 towards the costs of the accreditation.

Apply now

The latest cyber grants round is now open, and Scottish third sector organisations can apply for a cyber grant online here. This grant round is open until 18 December 2018.

Application criteria:

• Grants of up to £1,000 are available to Scottish third sector organisations.
• You should clearly describe how accreditation will benefit your organisation and service users (max 300 words).
• You should provide evidence of how you are already taking steps towards the baseline actions within the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) Small Charities Guide.
• Organisations must have a contracted IT supplier or dedicated in-house IT staff.
• The maximum annual income threshold to receive grant for Cyber Essentials accreditation is £4 million. Organisations with a higher income will be considered for Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.
• Organisations must have Cyber Essentials accreditation in place to apply for Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.

Useful information

The National Cyber Security Centre has produced the following resources to help charities:

1. Cyber Security: Small Charity Guide (Infographic Summary)
   A summary of low cost, simple techniques that can improve cyber security within your charity or voluntary organisation.
2. Cyber Security: Small Charity Guide (PDF Download)
   How to improve cyber security within your charity – quickly, easily and at low cost.
3. Cyber Threat Assessment: UK Charity Sector
   A report from the NCSC that outlines the cyber threat that charities of all sizes now face.

Get in touch

SFHA would like to hear what our members are doing to become more cyber resilient – we want to share experiences, best practices and knowledge to ensure our sector is fully aware. To share your perspectives, please get in touch with Gary Dickson, Digital and Design Lead: gdickson@sfha.co.uk

If you are interested in becoming more cyber resilient and want to discuss this with the SCVO Digital team, please contact digital@scvo.org.uk.