Social Networking Sites are Far From Immune to Cybersecurity Threats

Abstract

One of the more overlooked parts of cybersecurity attacks involves social media and social engineering tactics targeting it. If you’re not careful, you could be putting yourself at risk of attacks through social media. How can you ensure that your staff members are keeping security at top of mind even when using social media? Let’s find out.

Fake Accounts

A hacker might set up fake accounts that look similar to those you are familiar with or those who are popular or common. Accounts like these might be quite new, having only a handful of friends or been created recently. These accounts often only have a handful of posts, if any at all, and they are just fishing for “friends” to target.

Unsolicited Messages

Sometimes hackers might use a hacked or fake account to send unsolicited messages to users. The most notorious types of messages received might be from friends who you might not have heard from in a while, and you might ask yourself why they are contacting you out of the blue all of a sudden. While we are all for wanting to trust friends or connections, it’s important to vet suspicious messages appropriately before responding.

Phishing Links

Social media is often used to share links to news websites, articles, reviews, or other interesting information (interesting to the sharer, anyway). Before mindlessly clicking on a link, consider who is sharing it, where the link goes, and whether or not you can trust it. Taking a moment to use a bit of scrutiny can save you a lot of embarrassment and frustration on the off-chance it’s a phishing link.

Sneaky Quizzes

This one is more insidious compared to the others, as it’s not immediately clear or obvious that this is an issue. Essentially, you might see your friends taking quizzes like “Which Golden Girl are You?” If you’re not careful, you might be providing the quizzes, and whoever created them in the first place, with information that might be harvested later on for a hacking campaign. While it might be fun to learn these things, be cognizant of the types of questions you are being asked, too.

Training is Incredibly Important

To keep your employees from doing something silly and falling for a social media phishing scam, you need to conduct regular training sessions that make them aware of the dangers they face every day they log onto their social media accounts. Periodically go over social media best practices to ensure that your team is always apprised of what they need to know.

NetMGM can help your business train its employees and reinforce appropriate practices. To learn more about how we can help your team keep security at the top of their minds in all they do, reach out to us at 888-748-2525.