Your Social Media Security: Risks and Prevention

Social media can be considered as another dimension of living; our digital presence. With this comes new challenges and hence, digital security risks.

Your social media security is not a luxury

Anything that is digital or electronic, unfortunately, has the potential of getting hacked. While computers and other digital devices are amazing storage components and lifestyle facilitators, they are still vulnerable to cyber-attacks and other malpractices. Therefore, it is an organizational and personal responsibility to ensure that you maintain the utmost security when it comes to your digital presence, especially on social media.

Here are some outlined risks with best practice preventions in order to ensure your experience on social media remains secure, both from a personal and professional paradigm.

Unmonitored Activity Leading to Virus Attacks

Leaving your social media accounts unmonitored will lead to them being a target for malicious activity and cyberattacks. If not consistently overviewed and updated, such attacks will lead to message spamming to followers which will inherently result in a loss of trust and brand equity.

Prevention: Consistently change your passwords while initiating a two-step authentication procedure for all your social media accounts. Also maintaining an updated anti-virus will make such attacks almost nil.

Employee Compliance

A common social media threat is human error. Posting content that is not in-brand or clicking on/following fake accounts can not only threaten a company’s reputation but will also put you at risk of phishing scams and attacks.

Prevention: It is therefore important to keep your employees up-to-date and trained to comply with organizational culture and procedures such as publishing on-brand content and avoiding ‘default’ privacy settings on social media platforms. Through this, your brand’s social profiles will remain compliant and secure. One of the best practices is to keep one or two individuals in charge of social media accounts exclusively to avoid a greater extent of human error.

Not Using Secure Technology

Although we all know that logically all passwords must be changed and antiviruses updated in a timely manner, not using an effective security infrastructure for your applications may cause various attacks or inconsistencies in your social media operations.

Prevention: First, by using social media management software, you can aggregate all of your profiles onto one platform, and track and monitor activity at the same time. Moreover, having security infrastructure systems in place on both your desktop and smartphone are inherent components to make sure cyberattacks do not occur and do not impact your brand’s reliability and users’/followers’ trust.

While these preventions may highlight the simple ways you and your organization may maintain a level of effective social media security, it is still important to consult IT, and infrastructure professionals, in order to give you an overview of your potential security risk areas.

Did you know within the first 6 months of 2019, 21.6 million accounts were removed after they were detected as fake?

While these prevention measures offer a glimpse into maintaining effective social media security, it is crucial to consult IT and infrastructure professionals to gain a comprehensive understanding of potential risk areas. By doing so, individuals and organizations can proactively enhance their social media security efforts and safeguard their digital presence.

In light of the increasing prevalence of fake accounts and the detrimental impact of cyberattacks on user trust, it is essential to take decisive action. We encourage you to reach out for a consultation and explore our cybersecurity services, which can empower you to fortify your social media security measures. Together, we can ensure a safer and more secure digital experience for you and your brand’s stakeholders.

Learn more about our cybersecurity services.