Nonprofits Form Cyber Coalition

Nearly two dozen nonprofit cybersecurity organizations have formed an alliance with the aim of improving cybersecurity awareness through joint action.

The newly established Nonprofit Cyber coalition was launched on Wednesday with a founding membership of 22 organizations. All coalition members will work to support the public interest by developing, sharing, deploying and increasing the awareness of cybersecurity best practices, tools, standards and services. 

Two priorities were named by Nonprofit Cyber as the initial points of focus: building awareness of the work of cybersecurity nonprofits globally and aligning their work to achieve the greatest effect.  

Tony Sager, senior vice president and chief evangelist for CIS, and Philip Reitinger, president and CEO of the GCA, will serve as Nonprofit Cyber’s first co-chairs.

“A large number of nonprofits that focus on cybersecurity implementation are working within their own areas of action toward the joint goal of improving cybersecurity, but the lack of coordination and communication among them can lead to inefficiency and duplication of effort,” said Reitinger.

“Better communication and collaboration among these groups will enable programmatic and opportunistic action to improve cybersecurity.”

The coalition is welcoming membership applications from nonprofits around the world that “work to implement best practices and solutions at scale.” To apply, organizations must be a 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(6) nonprofit if organized under United States law or hold an equivalent status if organized under the laws of another country. 

The 22 founding members of Nonprofit Cyber are: the Anti-Phishing Working Group, the Center for Internet Security, the Center for Threat-Informed Defense, the Cloud Security Alliance, Consumer Reports, CREST International, the Cyber Defence Alliance, the CyberPeace Institute, the Cyber Readiness Institute, the Cyber Threat Alliance, the Cybercrime Support Network, the CyberGreen Institute, the FIDO Alliance, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, the Global Cyber Alliance, the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance, the National Cybersecurity Alliance, the Open Web Application Security Project, SAFECode, the Shadowserver Foundation, Sightline Security and #ShareTheMicInCyber. 

Hans de Vries, director of the NCSC-NL, said that the formation of the coalition could “help to bolster the fabric of understanding, sharing and cooperating during incidents and in general improve cyber governance.”