The Eastern Cyber Resilience Centre and the regional police Cyber Team – ERSOU Region Cyber Protect - are pleased to announce that they are providing a series of free cyber resilience webinars over the course of 2025/26.
Following the fantastic interest in the previous free Charities Sector cyber security events in 2024 where over 820 people from over 100 charities across the region tuned in, we have decided to continue to run both the staff and managers sessions quarterly, throughout the year.
To find out more sign up to our free ECRC newsletter where we regularly publish details of events and webinars that you might find useful or book directly onto the webinar on the ERSOU website.
The first set of online events is 8th April for the charities staff session and 15th of April for the charity leader’s session.
Why is this training so important? What we learned from the first webinar series.
39% of attendees reused passwords
49% of attendees did not have 2 step verification set up for their personal email (12% weren’t sure)
96% of staff who attended the sessions felt that as a result they feel more informed and able to review and update their own cyber security. (4% said they were already Cyber Aware)
The averages managers rating for their charity’s cyber readiness was 2.77 (out of 5)
67% of managers said their charity did not use 2 step verification for email
26% of managers said their charity’s us AI tools
Only 19% of managers said their charities has a cyber security strategy or a cyber incident response plan
100% of managers who attended the sessions felt that as a result they feel more informed and able to review and update their charities cyber security.
What did the charities think of the webinars? Feedback from staff and leaders.
“Thank you both for such an informative session. It has given me several actions that I intend to take forward with my fellow trustees!”
“Extremely useful and made me think who else in the charity to engage with this. Well done.”
“Excellent webinar, really useful, thank you.”
“Really helpful and good kick to sort my online presence!! Thank you”
“Brilliant thank you I'm going to be contacting our insurance company as now realise this needs checking”
“Thank you so much - several questions to be asked internally and of our external providers - just to check!”
“Thank you, worth the hour for sure”
What can you do now?
The Eastern Cyber Resilience Centre is part of the regional Police Cyber Protect network established to help charities and small businesses to become more resilient to the threats posed by criminals in the online world. We offer a free newsletter to any organisation or person who wishes to join – so sign up now and take advantage of everything we have to offer. After that…
1. See what passwords you and your staff have which have already appeared in data breaches and change them as soon as possible. Why not run a poll to see who has the most/least breaches? Haveibeenpwnded.com is a legit website where you can enter your email address and telephone number to see if your information has been captured in a data breach. You can also register your email address or domain and get notified if it appears in another breach.
2. Have a clear password policy for staff and tell them why having strong, unique passwords are essential. If you need some help with this, our affordable student services offer security awareness training. Why not make a booking to discuss further?
3. Enable 2FA and MFA wherever you can, but especially on your emails and social media accounts. Even with the best passwords, once someone knows that password then the system is no longer secure. With 2FA or MFA, even if the password and username are known, the criminal won’t have access to the second verification factor so they shouldn’t be able to just “log in”.
4. If your staff have a lot of passwords to remember, consider getting an enterprise password manager so they only have to remember one and the password manager generates and remembers the rest – saying goodbye to reused passwords.
5. The National Cyber Security Centre have also created a really good Small Charity Guide that you can access for free here.
Further guidance & support
You can contact the Cyber Resilience Centre for guidance and support through our e-mail or use our online booking system to make an appointment with one of our team.
Core members receive regular updates which include the latest guidance, news, and security updates. Our core membership has been tailored for businesses and charities of all sizes who are based across the seven counties in the East of England.
Reporting Cyber Crime
Report all Fraud and Cybercrime to Action Fraud by calling 0300 123 2040 or online. Forward suspicious emails to report@phishing.gov.uk. Report SMS scams by forwarding the original message to 7726 (spells SPAM on the keypad).
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