Why Social Media Threaten Information Security?

Social media platforms serve as a means for users to stay connected with friends, engage with customers, and market businesses. However, a place with such a large information volume cannot be safe from manipulations or even outright phishing. Let’s peek at the most notorious examples of threats to infosec you can meet on social networks.

Risk of social engineering attacks.

Criminals are aware that individuals are likely to share personal information. Therefore they exploit public profiles to extract valuable data that can be utilized for advanced social engineering assaults.

It’s essential to consider employees’ personal social media accounts as they can impact business security. Cybercriminals can use any post made on a social media profile linked to the business to compromise the company’s systems and data. The information is usually publicly visible when a digital profile is created. The more information an individual shares on their profile, the higher the risk of falling victim to cybercrime.

Cybercriminals often exploit social media users by creating fake accounts to deceive them into providing personal information, access credentials, or downloading malicious software through links. It’s important to stay vigilant and cautious while using social network to avoid falling victim to such scams.

Oversharing

Individuals who frequently post personal information on social networking sites can threaten businesses. Their actions can not only put themselves at risk by sharing confidential information, such as travel plans, business data, or patient information but also provide cybercriminals with a plethora of information they can exploit in various ways. The posts only can threaten the information security of the individual or a company. Though it is only a peak of the iceberg.

• Whaling attacks involve gathering valuable information to target high-level executives and persuade them to perform a secondary action, such as transferring funds.
• Spear phishing attempts are more targeted and accurate than typical phishing attempts. They focus on individuals and use specific details like current news and relevant financial documents.
• Spoofing occurs when a cybercriminal pretends to be someone or something else to gain access to private information.

Social media connections can create a cybersecurity risk. User activity, including likes, shares, and comments, can reveal valuable information about relationships that cybercriminals can exploit for fraudulent activities like phishing, spoofing, and impersonation.

Unsecured Portable Devices

Mobile devices are obviously the prevalent way of accessing social media. Modern security measures implemented on both mobile devices and in social network create an impression of secureness, but it is in fact just a misconception. The key there is accessing the ones phone, laptop or another device – and then you get everything. Thing is, people often rely exclusively on biometric identification, hoping that no one will try to pick the password that remains as a backup access method if something goes wrong. And – you guessed it right – they leave some of the easiest passwords to pick, like “1111” or “1234”, making it a piece of cake for hackers. This makes social media a nightmare to information security.

After such a lockpicking game, those who access the device can access whatever info in social media. This is even more efficient than using spyware/stealer malware, which cannot dump conversations in most messengers. By accessing the chats, criminals can gather not just your sensitive data but also your schedule and the schedules of other people, your company’s internal affairs, and the like. If it is not a dream of a hacker who collects data about the target – so what is?

How to Reduce Cyber Risks Using Social Media

In today’s world, businesses must have an online presence, including at least one social media platform. Social network has become necessary for building trust, increasing visibility, receiving customer reviews, conducting research, making comparisons, and facilitating direct communication with customers. The good news is that businesses can take steps to reduce the cyber risks associated with social network.

• Social Media Access Control
  Limiting the number of people accessing social media accounts is essential as it reduces the potential attack surface. Identifying, containing, and mitigating the damage becomes more manageable in a data breach. Assigning one person to oversee the business’s social network accounts is advisable to minimize security risks.
• Social Media Policy Implementation
  It is essential for every member of an organization, including those in leadership positions, to have access to a well-defined social media policy. This policy should outline how to safeguard sensitive and confidential information and what actions are strictly prohibited.
• Anti-Malware Implementation
  When dealing with unverified mobile devices, addressing security vulnerabilities can be difficult. Therefore, it is crucial that social media training emphasizes the significance of having antivirus and anti-malware software on all portable devices to safeguard against cyber attacks. This software can mitigate or resolve security threats, protecting users and their organizations.

The rise of social media has changed how we communicate and exchange information, but it has also brought about new dangers and obstacles concerning privacy and security. It is crucial to be aware of what we share on social network and who has access to it, as well as to take measures to safeguard our data and keep ourselves informed about privacy concerns and security risks. By following recommended guidelines for using social media, such as reviewing privacy policies, modifying privacy settings, and being alert to fraudulent schemes and phishing attacks, we can reap the benefits of social media while mitigating the potential risks.

The post Information Security Threats in Social Media appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

But where the good things come sometimes the bad ones follow. We talk about the so-called digital risks you willingly take when embarking on another new social media life. A lot of people spend a considerate time living digitally and one day start worrying about what details of reality they expose. Another question — “How does it influence me” — is usually consequential from the first one. And it does influence you not only in a way where social media platforms shape your digital personality but also your online cybersecurity.

Below you will find the five most common mistakes people tend to make on social media. These mistakes are often neglected but those that once made can have unpleasant results for a person.

Accepting friend requests from unknown accounts

You may be the friendliest person in the world, but that is not a good option online. That’s not only about allowing a stranger to view your personal information. In that way, you’re putting at risk other people you befriended on social media. That is especially true if you have a private account, so seeing your info requires your permission. In the case of public accounts, anyone can see what you’re posting and sharing, but even this option some users go with brings other nuances to think about when securing your cyber safety.

Having a private account means aiming at less exposition of your details, plans for the future, et cetera. It is important to be consequent in these attempts to make them as effective as possible. These random people who send you friend requests and seemingly want to just to get to know more people and make some friends can be different kinds of fraudsters like romance scammers, phishers, boxers, etc. You never know their true intentions, and even getting into a conversation with them might lead to more dangerous consequences.

Not checking photos you’ve been tagged on

Have you checked what on those photos that you’ve been tagged on? If you’re not — you better do. You are the one who’s in charge of the content you’re allowed to circulate on the Internet related to your account. Keeping an eye on what others share about it is also an important thing in your cyber well-being. No one wants some embarrassing photos of oneself from a friend’s birthday party to end up online. And sometimes it’s not only your friends to blame for sharing content you’d rather wish to lay in archives. You have to check settings that will allow you to have more control over the content related to your account.

Oversharing

This is a mistake that most people may have made the most. The problem in today’s digital landscape makes life much easier for threat actors but not for ordinary users themselves. Sharing the current workplace, your own, or your relatives’ home location doesn’t positively contribute to securing one’s safety. A well-informed threat actor can hope for a more successful cyber attack with the kinds of information you sometimes provide themselves on one of your social media accounts.

The good practice will be to minimize the info you share on social media accounts. It is especially actual in cases when a social network asks for it, but that is not an obligatory thing. Nevertheless, your coworkers and friends on Facebook most likely won’t need the info about the school you attended, who is your third cousin, or where you lived before. Normally, people on the same social media platform only need a way to somehow identify that this account belongs to you — the person they know or want to befriend.

For this they only need to see your name and a photo showing that it is truly you. If you are quite good at managing your digital footprint and its size, sharing just your name and a photo won’t put you at some enormous cyber security risk but instead you restrict a variety of freely circulated information on your persona for anyone on the internet to use for their purposes.

Don’t also forget about not oversharing your life events on social media platforms you use when you post photos with geolocation, sharing stories in real time tagging places or people you are going to visit or visited, revealing in posts your travel plans, major life plans, etc. Too much is also posting photos that explicitly show your surrounding neighborhood, your workplace, and places you regularly go shopping. Oversharing your life events may lead to serious life-threatening cases like stalking, burglary, physical assaults, etc

Neglecting some security essentials

Some of the important security essentials include enabling two-factor (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA) features, restricting access to the information on your social media account, enabling some of the features that won’t allow completely strange people in any way to interact with your account. You only need several minutes to set these settings, but they will save you a significant amount of time when in the future you may have to deal with a cyber-attack or data breach. On any major social media platform, you can find various tutorials on how to make sure you follow security essentials concerning your safety it and know how to apply them.

Reusing passwords on multiple accounts

A number one rule in cybersecurity hygiene. One password — one account. In case of a compromise of one account, you won’t endanger the other accounts that may have the same password. Of course, it can be hard when trying to manage all the passwords users now can have which can amount sometimes to up to fifty or a hundred passwords. But you can always choose a reliable password manager that will help you to secure your accounts’ access and keep passwords in one place.

The post 5 Security Mistakes You’re Making On Social Media appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.