Charities in Moray are to be offered training in order to protect themselves against falling victim to cyber crime.
Callous criminals across the world have begun targeting voluntary groups in order to dupe organisations into parting with cash or information.
Statistics show that one in five charities in Scotland fell victim to some form of cyber attack during 2018.
Now TSI Moray is offering support to groups to offer tips on how they can avoid falling victim to scams.
Alastair Miller, who is providing the training from Tuminds, has warned that tactics from criminals are now taking a range of sophisticated forms.
He said: “Sadly charities are proving to be one of the prime targets now, particularly the smaller ones.
“Because they rely on volunteers they are often very stretched so they maybe don’t check e-mails as thoroughly as others do to see if it is legitimate. Bigger charities tend to have departments dedicated to it too.
“The big one is fishing e-mails where they get you to click on a link and it lets the criminals access files. Ransom attacks have also been reported where they ask you to part with money before a deadline or important data will be deleted.
“It’s really horrible that people feel the need to target charities that are only trying to help people.”
TSI Moray will be running the free session at Winchester House on King Street in Elgin on Wednesday at 9.30am. Call 01343 541713 for more information.