NTEN Change Issue One: March 2011 : Page 40
WHAT WOULD YOU DO? of your own—has WHAT been turned to the dark side. Perhaps HAPPENED? IT it’s something else— regardless the cause, SEEMS YOUR some ingenious BABY STEPS INTO script-kiddy has turned the tables THE WORLD OF and suddenly you’re responsible for thou-USER-GENER-sands upon thou-ATED CONTENT sands of spam messages. AND SOCIAL If that’s not bad enough: right smack-NETWORKING dab in the middle of HAVE TURNED every [*ahem*] mes-sage is a reference to ON YOU. your web site, testi-mony to the time you spent setting up those nice tag lines “Follow us on Twitter” and “Friend us on Face-book.” Worse, there are a couple of thousand anti-spam-bots gunning for you now. As a result of this mayhem, your email service has been blacklisted by every anti-spam system in the universe. Your email reputation is so far in the toilet that no one will accept delivery of your email. Staring at your rogue server, you consider “pulling a Palin” and quitting right there. All the while, the refrain from Alice What Do You Do When Cooper’s Talk Talk echos unbidden through your head: My social life’s a dud. My name is really mud. I’m up to here in lies. I guess I’m down to size. The only saving grace is the fact the spam is coming from your web server and not your primary email sys-tem. On the other hand, it is the one used by every-thing on your web site, including your extranet. Consequently, none of your closest constituents, your membership, your friends and family and board, are getting any of the normal transactional messages— little things like password change confirmations, or perhaps receipts or other administrivia that makes the world go ‘round. What’s the fix? Sure, there are tech fixes here— holes to patch in your internet armor—but there are bigger problems too. • How do you get your good reputation back? How do you take responsibility without taking the blame? • And, finally, what’s an avoidance strategy for the future — one that anticipates what might be, but communicates that nothing is foolproof. This is the first in a series from guest contributor Gavin Clabaugh, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Every issue, Gavin will provide hypothetical scenarios that could—and maybe already have—happen to your nonprofit. Now, it’s your turn to respond: what would you do? Please share your stories by clicking here. You’ve Been Hacked? NTEN: CHANGE · MARCH 2011 · PAGE 40
Publication List
Using a screen reader? Click Here