Mutual Aid Groups: Invitation to Participate in Case Study to Make Something Better than PayPal and Venmo

In collaboration with Fight for the Future, the UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic is inviting mutual aid organizations to participate in a case study aimed at developing a comprehensive guide for financial technology systems that ensures maximum cybersecurity and usefulness for mutual aid organizations. 

As a participant in the case study, the Cybersecurity Clinic requires that your organization participate in a pro bono cybersecurity risk assessment, which is a private assessment of your organization’s digital security only available to you.

Detailed below is background on the UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic, information about participating in the case study, followed by next steps.

Background on the UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic

The UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic is an interdisciplinary, public-interest digital security clinic within the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. Through a model similar to university clinics in law and medicine, they train teams of students to help social sector organizations build the capabilities they need to proactively defend themselves against malicious governments, powerful corporations, hate groups, and extremists. You can read more about the Clinic here. 

Participating in the Case Study

Participating organizations are expected to participate in a pro bono cybersecurity risk assessment with the UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic. The risk assessment is a comprehensive document detailing threats to your organization by investigating your financial platforms, policies, data storage, communications platforms, org structure, and more. 

The Cybersecurity Clinic asks that your organization commit to between three and five 45-minute meetings for the cybersecurity risk assessment, dependent on organization size and complexity. These meetings will consist of gathering information about your organization’s mission, operations and digital footprint. 

Your organization’s risk assessment is private and only for you. Any findings reported in the final case study will be in broad terms and anonymized. The primary focus of the case study is to use the findings to create a resource for developers working on financial technology systems who want their projects to be private, safe, and useful to mutual aid networks.

Next Steps

Email the Cybersecurity Clinic Program Assistant, Anna Lanzino, at cybersecurityclinic@ischool.berkeley.edu to schedule a kick-off meeting. If you have further questions, feel free to direct them to Anna too.