Social media and its services are quite tempting. Social media platforms allow individuals and businesses to connect and share versatile ideas. Sharing or ‘oversharing’ information on social media can backfire on you or your business and have a negative impact on cybersecurity protocols.
Without any controversy, social media impulses can provoke cybersecurity threats. And, the risk is not only harmful to an individual but also can destroy an organisation’s reputation. Malicious actors or hackers can take advantage of your oversharing habits.
Moreover, they gather information about your business’s digital artefacts and relationships across multiple platforms. Undoubtedly, the use of social media is unavoidable due to its popularity and credibility among consumers.
However, a business can deliberately lose its revenue and customer base if it doesn’t handle social media with precautions.
Let’s talk about how social media impacts cybersecurity in different forms and how you can build a barrier against them.
What are the Cybersecurity Threats Associated with Social Media Practices?
Smart Data Recovery confirms that over 212.4 million small businesses rely on social media worldwide to bridge the gap with their customers. It’s no longer a secret how social media can help businesses reach out to new customers, hold their impressions, and enhance revenue generation.
Social media platforms are the easiest way to connect with people, whether it’s on an individual level or corporate means.
Businesses mainly use social media for the following reasons:
- Reach new customers and attract them
- Build brand loyalty
- Work on brand awareness by posting creative content and engaging the target audience.
- Conduct market research
- Receive feedback from consumers
- Administer traffic to their websites
- Tackle customer concerns and complaints
- Hire employees by posting ads on social media
Therefore, businesses can empower their branding, sales, and real-time communication with social media. On the other hand, cybercriminals implement different ways to use social media to gather or steal information from businesses. They target accounts of employees and higher business personnel for reconnaissance purposes.
Here are the top reported threats imposed by social media on cybersecurity means:
1. Data Breaching and Loss of Intellectual Property
Hackers can lure your employees into different social media platforms or dating sites, which is known as honey-trapping. Then, they can use tactics to gather business-sensitive information by enticing them.
On the other hand, they might run ransomware and additional strategies to breach or leak data from the enterprise. Reportedly, they can engage employees through puzzles, quizzes, and memes. And, employees might give out hints about passwords unintentionally.
Cybercriminals may also access intellectual property from the untimely release of data. These approaches are not typical cyberattacks but human errors, and hackers use social engineering, phishing attacks, impersonations, and more.
Moreover, intruders can gain account credentials and access sensitive information under your nose. They even might leak the data for their financial gain.
2. Oversharing Leads to Phishing
Almost everyone knows one or more ‘friends’ on Facebook or other social media platforms who keep posting about where they are going, what they are doing, who they are with, etc. Now, this violates the personal space of that typical individual and he or she might invite the risk of phishing.
The same applies to a business, too. Hackers can easily mastermind phishing emails if the official business account or the associated employees’ accounts keep posting everywhere. They have to join the strings related to the target’s hobbies, activities, etc.
Then, those hackers might send an email or text to the target employee. And, the employee might find it realistic and open it. This might inject risk into the employee’s computer or mobile device. This might put the business at the edge of vulnerability.
3. Reputation Loss
This is not a typical cybersecurity risk navigating through social media. However, a negative review online might ruin your years of hard work and investments. For example, if a customer posts anything bad about a product or service originating from your business, then it might go viral.
Companies have to treat these complaints and concerns with sensitive and sincere steps. A single mistake might exploit your business’s goodwill and image. On top of that, self-inflicted posts on social media can also lead to a loss of reputation.
For instance, unrealistic promises, expectations and products, cold-hearted tweets and statements, and inappropriate behaviour of the social media management team can trigger a loss of reputation. Therefore, you, as a responsible business owner, have to take considerate steps to prevent your brand from being reviewed negatively on social media.
4. Privacy & Compliance Violations
Regulating social media accounts should be performed under strict supervision. Otherwise, this might endanger your business in terms of privacy laws and regulatory requirements.
The risk can be varied according to specific violations and copyright infringements. Data can be leaked from official business accounts, which might put the enterprise at risk.
5. Misinformation Practices
Lately, cybercriminals have been using misinformation and disinformation. For example, malicious intruders might send you or any of your employees a notification on social media. And, that notification says, ‘You are locked out of your profile’.
Or, it might mention that your account has been hacked or compromised. Being panicked, your employees might click an illicit link that says, ‘Click here to change your password’. This can be the gateway to different malicious attacks.
Within minutes, important and sensitive information might be handed over to those malicious actors. Mostly, these attackers focus on targeting individual accounts to access corporate computer systems, bank accounts, personal data, and more.
Tools Used by Attackers to Instigate Social Media Risks
Social media accounts are mostly public. On the other hand, hidden accounts are not that safe too. Hackers looking for a high financial gain invest their efforts to access business information. Others work n individual levels to access corresponding bank accounts or sensitive personal information for blackmailing purposes.
However, the question is how they accomplish such social media threats. The answer lies in social engineering, site compromise, malware spread, and more. Let’s check out what a social media threat can look like and how they can violate cybersecurity:
Social Engineering
This widespread technique uses human emotions and interactions to manipulate the target personnel. Hackers make the victim fool by impersonating themselves. Hence, the hacker might manipulate the victim to give away sensitive information about the company or even benefit from monetary demand.
Now, social engineering takes multiple steps to get accomplished. For instance, the attacker conducts extensive research about the target and might call or message the victim. Next, the attacker gains the victim’s trust to control them into passing potential data from the organisation. For example, the victim can be a new addition to a company and may receive a request from a hacker impersonating a high-level executive.
Phishing
Hopefully, you are familiar with phishing. A phishing attack uses an online message or email to bait the target. However, the phishing email or message should be related to the victim’s interest. Thus, it will be easy for the hacker to manipulate the victim to click the illicit link.
Sometimes, the attacker builds a rapport or relationship with the target person to make them click the malicious link. In addition, they might create a fake urgency to leak data with a malicious link.
Catfishing
Catfishing refers to a fake personal profile created for deceptive or fraudulent purposes on a social network. Attackers use catfishing to steal data and bypass credential authorities.
A catfisher generally engages with business employees by faking their identity. They might even pretend to be interested in doing online business with you. In the end, they might humiliate you or steal intellectual property.
Brand Impersonation
Like catfishing, hackers create fake accounts and pages to impersonate popular brands. For example, attackers might impersonate your business and scam innocent people. Thus, you will face a loss of reputation and goodwill.
On the other hand, they might victimise your employees on social networking sites by impersonating a different brand. This can easily drive social media threats into your business’s internal networks and elevate risks.
Malware
Have you clicked on the wrong advertisement? Beware because that can be malware. Malware need not be downloaded, and it can act without any file and initiate its vicious cycle.
Employees in the workspace might click on such an ad, and the malware can spread inside the network. Social media sites are full of this advanced malware and other threats.
What Can You Do to Stop Such Cybersecurity-Violating Threats Found on Social Media?
Strong cybersecurity and social security practices can safeguard your personal and enterprise data. Disclosing too much information in public mostly leads to data leaks and other risks. Here are some proven methods to prevent social media threats from intruding on your business:
Use Multi-Factor Authentication
This security-enhancing protocol requires 2 or more authentication factors to grant access to an account, VPN, or application. Ensure that you enable multi-factor authentication to add extra layers of security. This can prevent criminals from stealing identities and data. So, enable it for your employees.
Strengthen Password Policies
Using the same password for different social networking sites is a dumb move. Thus, hackers can easily guess your account passwords and hack them. Use at least 10 to 12 characters, including uppercase and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers, to create passwords. Keep track of passwords by using a reliable password manager.
Upskill Employees
Your employees need to learn about cybersecurity seams through social networking sites. Run awareness programs and additional training facilities to update your employees about phishing attacks, malware, etc.
Implement Necessary Do’s and Don’ts on Social Media Use
Document social media usage policies for your employees. Most of your employees are active on multiple social networking sites. Draw the margin regarding what an employee can and can’t share over social media.
In addition, it should state how your employees can respond to objectionable content. Otherwise, it might affect your business resulting in direct or indirect damage to the reputation.
Monitor Spoofs of Your Account
Brand impersonation is a triggering concern. Hence, look out for spoofed accounts. Monitor the use of your brand’s accounts, logos, and other digital signatures. Report impersonation attempts, violations, and more to social media administrators.
Compress Social Media Connections
It’s normal to have the urge to possess a huge following on your brand’s social media account. However, compromised attacks get generated from such crowded places. Remember, not every follower is your customer. There can be multiple threat actors who are waiting for you to make a mistake.
Therefore, curate social media connections for the sake of your business. Also, hire a professional social media management team to secure and reward connections.
In Conclusion
Apart from the above precautions, update your social media settings according to the latest security norms. Install antivirus and firewall software to fortify your business parameters. Furthermore, connect devices to only authorised and protected Wi-Fi networks. Ask your employees to refrain from clicking malicious links.
Comprehensive cooperation and collaboration can minimise social media risks in cybersecurity aspects. Practise the mentioned cybersecurity rules to keep your social networking experience free from threats.