Drawing on its membership of 60 charities, the CSF is designed to help those organisations working in the non-profit sector, with easy access to dedicated information and resources about IT security.
The programme will launchat a special event this coming Thursday evening in London, hosted by Barclay Simpson Corporate Governance Recruitment.
The event, held at Hamilton House, London, starts at 6pm, and is open to anyone from the 160 000 charities operating in the UK
The programme is billed as the latest development for the forum, which has evolved rapidly from six to 60 member charities since its inaugural meeting in 2007.
According to officials with the CSF, the mentoring scheme will centre on the pairing of less experienced or non-security focused practitioners with more experienced practitioners within the member charities.
Mentors will be available, by email or telephone, to help with advice, with an objective to identify and offer a valuable expert resource from within the non-profit sector that is both proficient in security and cognisant of the unique challenges faced by the sector.
Announcing the mentoring programme, Brian Shorten, the forum's co-founder and head of security at Cancer Research UK, said that UK charities generate a combined total income of more than £48 billion.
"For most, information is the lifeblood that enables them to fulfil their charitable purpose and, like any other business, they have a responsibility to protect the integrity of their information and assure the security of their data", he said.
"One of the aims of the Charities Security Forum is to try to spread best practice within a community that often doesn't have anyone dedicated to security. There are some who have not even heard of PCI DSS – the card payment standard for information security – for instance, yet they will be dependent on credit card donations", he added.
Martyn Croft, CIO at The Salvation Army, who founded CSF with Shorten, said that card fraud is a double danger for charities. Donations to a charity websites, he says, are made with no expectation of fulfilment other than a thank you and the knowledge of supporting a good cause.
Phishing emails are being crafted to exploit the same emotions can easily trick the public into visiting bogus websites. "When people are being exploited in this way it is doubly damaging. The donors lose out and so do the intended recipients. It's something we should be on top of as charities, but it's a difficult area to police", Croft said.
"As if to add insult to injury, analysis of web donations will often demonstrate that charity websites are frequently used by carders to test stolen payment card credentials", he added. "This is an area of information security where the Charity Security Forum has unique knowledge and will be pleased to advise", he explained.
Further information on the programme and the event can be obtained from the founders - brian.shorten@cancer.org.uk or martyn.croft@salvationarmy.org.uk.