Right now, cybersecurity threats show no signs of diminishing, increasingly impacting organizations across industries: municipal government offices, school boards, medical companies, investment firms, and beyond.
For the Chief Operating Officers of associations and nonprofits with limited resources, this chaotic environment makes strengthening their organization’s resilience more critical than ever. Outsourcing your IT to a managed IT services provider helps you achieve that operational stability, letting you partner with qualified experts who will proactively manage and secure your technology.
Keep reading for a comprehensive breakdown of how COOs can leverage professional IT services to minimize the risks you face to your operational health and maximize security, efficiency, and growth.
The Growing Cybersecurity Risks That COOs Must Address
Cybersecurity threats are escalating, with 42% of organizations seeing a rise in phishing incidents alone last year, let alone other types of attack and breach methods.
However, many organizations aren’t prepared to handle the risks they face. That same report noted that while 66% of organizations anticipate that artificial intelligence will massively impact cybersecurity in the coming months, only 37% have implemented measures to assess AI tools before deploying them in their operations.
Chief Operating Officers (COOs) of associations and nonprofits are increasingly in the crosshairs. Cybercriminals are targeting organizations with limited IT resources, exploiting vulnerabilities created by outdated systems, untrained staff, and insufficient security protocols. If they encounter a successful attack, that will likely disrupt IT service quality, expose sensitive member information, and undermine the trust that associations and nonprofits work so hard to build with their community.
However, it’s also getting increasingly complex to develop a solid defense of your IT infrastructure and ensure adequate data security for nonprofits or associations. With digital workplaces becoming more intricate and hybrid work environments that leverage cloud-based collaboration tools becoming the norm, organizations continue to multiply potential points of entry into their systems and expand their attack surface. Regulatory pressures and compliance requirements continue to mount, adding another layer of complexity to cybersecurity risk management.
How Managed IT Services Help COOs Enhance Cybersecurity
A COO’s main priority is organizational resilience. While overseeing your organization’s day-to-day administrative functioning, your goal is to execute its mandate and facilitate the timely and on-budget completion of all your activities and initiatives.
You also focus on strategic, “big picture” planning. So, in your quest to strengthen your cybersecurity posture, you likely seek effective and affordable IT security solutions that align with your long-term goals.
A managed IT services provider can help you deliver on that goal in various ways, such as:
Reducing weaknesses in your cybersecurity defense
A specialized MSP for nonprofits offers access to multiple experts who understand how to configure every element of your IT infrastructure separately and together to perform optimally. That knowledge of current best practices helps them conduct a thorough cybersecurity risk assessment of your ecosystem. They will first pinpoint any inefficiencies or neglected areas. Then, they will recommend tailored IT solutions for nonprofits to bring your infrastructure up to speed and meet the demands of operating in your current threat landscape.
Proactively monitoring and managing cyber threats
A managed IT services provider can also help maintain operational integrity by analyzing your network’s traffic consistently, around the clock. Many providers will operate a 24/7 security operations center (SOC) that gives you access to a team of dedicated IT professionals who use advanced intrusion detection systems to track and respond to potential security events in real-time.
The MSP will also conduct regular updates and patches, keeping your software and systems up to date so that your infrastructure has fewer weaknesses for a bad actor to exploit.
Implementing advanced security technologies for COOs
Cloud security for nonprofits can be challenging but managed IT service providers live and breathe this subject. They regularly dedicate time to learning the latest and most effective tools to protect your organizational data.
As a result, your provider will implement essential tools designed to keep unauthorized users out and maintain a secure working environment, like anti-ransomware, advanced email filtering systems, firewalls, endpoint and server protection, and multi-factor authentication.
An MSP will also preventatively deploy measures to mitigate the damage if someone does enter your network, such as penetration testing, managed drive encryption, and reactive containment.
Developing a robust incident response plan
As the person in charge of keeping your operations flowing smoothly in your role as COO, you want to know that if an incident does happen, you can deal with it effectively to minimize harm.
A managed IT services provider is well-versed in incident response planning and nonprofit cybersecurity strategies. They can help you create and execute a structured plan to detect, contain, and recover from cyber threats to minimize downtime and protect your organization’s critical data.
In advance, they will establish disaster communication protocols, map out recovery processes, and outline each staff member’s roles and responsibilities during the incident. Then, the MSP trains your team and conducts drills to help everyone feel ready for the challenges they may encounter.
Facilitating smooth disaster recovery
Before partnering with designDATA, a railway association hosted its systems on-premises, including its data, email, website, and management tools. This setup led to many severe outages that disrupted their operations, preventing their employees from accessing data and email services. Our experts helped the organization transition to a secure cloud environment and implement comprehensive disaster recovery and data backup plans.
Your provider should proactively implement measures to keep your data available and intact during a loss-threatening disaster. They will also ideally store copies of your data in a private off-site data center so that your critical business functions can continuously rely on any necessary resources during an incident.
The Benefits of Managed IT Services for Association and Nonprofit Cybersecurity
Compared to traditional IT risk management for COOs, managed IT allows you to create a more comprehensive and cost-effective defense.
- Traditional IT support: This approach typically follows the “break-fix” model, which involves addressing specific issues after they occur. Unfortunately, tackling problems piecemeal does not align with a broader strategy that keeps long-term organizational security goals in mind.
- Managed IT services: These providers will implement a holistic “people, process, technology” framework that optimizes resources and can be easily scaled based on evolving needs. They focus on strategic IT management, meaning their experts go beyond addressing immediate concerns to constructing a resilient technological ecosystem that can support your operations amidst whatever risks and threats it faces.
Curious to know how to find the right provider for your distinct requirements? For a list of questions to ask during your selection process, we have a free guide in our Resource Library titled “8 Questions to Ask Your IT Provider.”
Partner With designDATA Managed IT Services to Strengthen Your Cybersecurity
Protecting your organization’s digital assets is a key priority for any Chief Operating Officer who wants to maintain productivity and meet operational goals on time, within budget, and to your desired quality.
That’s why partnering with a managed IT services provider would be a smart strategic move. You’ll be able to adopt a comprehensive and strategic security approach that enhances your protection and resilience.
Don’t wait until after a data breach disrupts your operations! When you partner with designDATA for our IT consulting for nonprofits, our experts will implement a proactive cybersecurity strategy that’s tailored to your specific needs, secures your digital future and provides a reliable technological foundation to sustain your operations.
Ready to strengthen your cybersecurity strategy with expertly managed IT services – contact designDATA today!
