Nonprofits’ Sensitive Work Requires Secure, Stable Tech Infrastructure
Nonprofits work with sensitive data that needs special care, such as information on vulnerable people and private medical and personal information. But the type of data that is most enticing to cybercriminals is donor information.
Using a cloud-based infrastructure can help nonprofits properly handle that data and mitigate the risks of owning sensitive information. Encryption, multifactor authentication, identity and access management (IAM), firewalls: All of these can increase nonprofits’ confidence that the donors who make them tick won’t be exposed in a data breach.
Relying on the cloud also relieves nonprofits of the burden of upgrading their technology on their own. When frequently strapped nonprofits are left to their own devices to assess and upgrade their tech services, it can mean that IT staffers are left to handle the endeavor on an ad hoc basis, perhaps taking their attention away from mission-critical work.
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An outsourced, cloud-based infrastructure provider eliminates the need for managing data center hardware. Cloud systems are updated regularly, enabling real-time updates instead of the costly downtime and user confusion endemic to in-house updates.
That said, as tech nonprofit NTEN points out, going to the cloud isn’t entirely risk-free. Organizations must count on their providers, must continue to manage the data stored on cloud-based networks and must maintain correct security configurations. But the benefits of outsourcing IT infrastructure remain bountiful: In addition to being secure and stable, it can be more cost-effective, more flexible, more stable and more helpful for regulation compliance than in-house solutions.