Why does cybersecurity matter?
There’s a lot of good work that is being done in the development and humanitarian sector. We need to prevent the good work from being out shadowed by bad actors. As the world becomes more digital, there are more online threats. Some bad actors have political motivations, such as nation state actors who do not support the work you are doing. The culture in international development is that we operate separately from national security. An adversary nation will not see us as separate.
Other bad actors have financial motivations, and they might try to do a ransomware attack.
Here’s a list of recent cyber incidents on humanitarian sector.
| Organization | Incident |
|---|---|
| International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) | In 2022, confidential information of 515,000 people was compromised. |
| Insecurity Insight, a Switzerland-based nonprofit | In March 2022, employees received malicious links and porn on their cell phones after publishing a report on Russian attacks on hospitals in Ukraine. |
| USAID and around 40 international development and humanitarian organizations | In May 2021, Russia state actors hacked USAID and targeted 150 other organizations, at least 25% of the organizations involved international development, humanitarian issues and human rights work. |
| Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) | In May 2021, VSA was hit by a ransomware attack. VSA is New Zealand’s largest volunteer agency in international development. |
| Intrahealth | In 2018, there was a ransomware attack impacting more than 500 employees work in 37 countries. |
Security is everyone’s job, not just the IT department. Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) involves collecting a lot of data, often from vulnerable populations. This website was designed to share cyber security best practices through the lens of M&E for international development projects. The intended audience is anyone who collects, stores, or shares project related data.
This website focuses on data protection and goes into details on:
- How to design your program with privacy in mind, so it will comply with privacy laws and data governance regulations.
- How to keep the systems that contain sensitive data secure by using encryption, using secure data collection tools, and following cybersecurity best practices.