Nonprofit organizations face many of the same cybersecurity threats as businesses. Unfortunately, they often lack the IT resources, budget, and staff to combat them.
Ensuring those organizations stay secure is part of TechSoup's mission. At Oktane 2025, Conor Mulherin, TechSoup's Director and GM of Validation Services, spoke with Mandy Logan, a co-host of Paul’s Security Weekly podcast, about the importance of ensuring nonprofits don't get left behind regarding security. These organizations, Mulherin says, deserve the same level of protection as businesses because of their role in society.
"They're often mission-driven and focused less — because of their size and resources they have — on IT security," he says. "They're often working in sensitive mission areas. They're often handling sensitive data sets, and can be a target for cybercriminals and for, sometimes, state-sponsored actors to get at that data."
TechSoup serves some 1.5 million organizations globally, equipping them with the tools and technical expertise they need to achieve their goals. Many of these organizations do not have a CTO or a dedicated full-time IT staff. Cybersecurity threats these days, particularly those supported by AI, are relatively indiscriminate, with attackers going out and looking for vulnerabilities. This reality makes nonprofits particularly attractive, Mulherin explains.
"Nonprofits are more likely to have those vulnerabilities because there aren't policies in place, perhaps the technical systems aren't patched and updated, so they become easy targets," he says.
Recently, TechSoup announced a partnership with Tech Impact to launch the Virtual Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program for the Nonprofit Sector, which is meant to help small nonprofits effectively implement and manage the technology they need.
When it comes to cybersecurity, the core of TechSoup's mission "is to level the playing field," says Mulherin, adding that companies like Okta help enable that.
Watch the video above to learn more about the challenges nonprofits face and the role Okta plays in improving identity security.
