Social Media for Business

Wednesday, 13 January 2016

The Next Big Cybercrime Vector: Social Media

With attacks on enterprise networks becoming more sophisticated, organizations have stepped up perimeter security by investing in the latest firewall, data protection, and intrusion prevention technologies. In response, hackers are moving to the path of least resistance and looking for new avenues to exploit. Many security experts believe the next wave of enterprise hacking will be carried out via social media channels. Social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, social media marketing blogs and Twitter have become ubiquitous. They help us connect with friends and family, find jobs, share experiences, promote personal interests and business offerings. Social networks have also become a powerful political tool, as the uprising in the Middle East has demonstrated. Government and businesses around the world now recognize the power and benefits of social networks for mass communications, news distribution, as well as promotion of products and services. However, when combined with social engineering efforts, they also have a dark side and pose a tremendous risk to organizations in today’s interconnected world. A good example was “Newscaster” or “Charming Kitten” cyber-attack, which made headlines earlier this year. The attack, according to a report by threat intelligence social media brand marketing provider iSIGHT Partners, originated in Iran and targeted primarily senior U.S. military and diplomatic personnel, congressional personnel, Washington D.C. journalists, think tanks, defense contractors, and United States allies overseas. This state-sponsored attack used fake personas on social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+) to establish trust relationships that were later exploited to distribute malware designed to steal passwords and sensitive information. Based on the findings, the attack managed to go undetected from at least 2011, and some of the malware continues to go undetected by many signature-based security tools.

Security Review Policies in Higher Education

Last week the Tor Project created a bit of controversy when it accused Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) of accepting $1 million dollars in order to unmask Tor users. At a high level, Tor is a privacy focused technology that routes traffic to hide the identity of its users. Tor became a favored technology by political activists and whistleblowers who need such protection, as well as cyber criminals and other unsavory types who want to abuse this protection. It isn’t a surprise social media marketing chicago that a government agency would be interested in breaking the veil of anonymity. The FBI supposedly used research from CMU to help bring down an illegal marketplace known as the Silk Road, which offered services ranging from normal legal goods, to forged documents, and a variety of drugs (credit cards, child pornography and murder for hire were supposedly against the site’s terms of service). Almost immediately, CMU received criticism for its perceived role in the event, claiming that the research was arguably unethical and that proper oversight would likely have nixed the project early on. And yet, every time there is a new incident related even tangentially to security occurs, we ask the same questions: “How did this happen?”; “Why weren’t there controls in place?”; “Doesn’t this go against industry best practices?” Granted, these are legitimate questions that should not be downplayed, but the real question is, “Are there even proper security review policies in place to determine if and when a project is deemed acceptable – all in a timely (and relevant) fashion?” Having transitioned from being a security professional in academia to the private sector not long ago, I’d like to share some of my experience from “through the looking-glass,” to help explain and defend some of the criticism CMU is receiving. The first thing to note is that higher education is almost a different cost of social media marketing beast when it comes to security. Those institutions that have a strong security review policy in place often have one thing in common: a breach. In 2014, we saw several university breaches affecting close to a million current, former and prospective staff, faculty, and students. While it’s well known that promoting security is an uphill battle in a world more reliant on technology with each passing day, education faces an even tougher battle.

Design of cyber security awareness game utilizing a social media framework

Social media attacks a growing concern for enterprises

While social media risks have typically been an issue for consumers, experts said the risks have extended to enterprises users, as attackers look to collect sensitive, personal information online and also execute phishing attacks. For example, many cybercriminals can easily trick social media marketing trends individuals on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, into clicking on malicious links, according to Gary Bahadur, CEO of Miami-based security consulting firm KRAA Security LLC and the author of Securing the Clicks: Network Security in the Age of Social Media. "When a hacker deploys a social engineering attack [on social media], they take advantage of people's trust," Bahadur said. Samir Kapuria, vice president and general manager of Cyber Security Services at Symantec, said cybercriminals are becoming much more adept at using social media services and sites to their advantage. Specifically, he said Symantec has seen a rise in the number of social media attacks that scam users into clicking on malicious links. They're automating the ruse more through social media, so the victims are being brought right to the doorstep of the bad guys," Kapuria said. "They're using the power of social networking, along with the surge of mobile devices, and they're getting more efficient and effective with how they conduct their business." Such scams are often presented in the form of news about fake celebrity death reports and sex tapes, unbelievable world news, must-see videos, and free offers for smartphones, plane tickets, or gift cards. These spread rapidly on social media because people are more likely to click on links posted by a friend or if it has many shares. This is known as social proofing, and it describes how individuals attribute more trust and value into something because it's been clicked on or approved by other users. Furthermore, criminals use a methodology called likejacking, which presents users with intriguing news, videos and photographs. The hackers encrypted the Facebook Like button with malicious code that is used for an assortment of criminal activity. For example, some malicious posts bring the users to unsafe social media marketing course sites that request the victim to fill out a bogus survey or sign up for fake special offers and services. But potentially greater social media risks for enterprise users involve the reckless posting of personal information online, which can be exploited by hackers. "People, especially the younger generations, are not trained to protect or limit the information they share online," Bahadur said. "Once they hit the corporate world, their online presence could be a disaster, and they won't understand the concept of privacy and sensitive data."

Network & Cyber Security Training for Your Employees

It’s just too easy. Cyber-threat actors are targeting your company and getting what they want. Through the process of Social Engineering, they research information from various public and social media websites and then settle on a course of action – to target your CEO through the CEO’s administrative assistant. The cyber attackers create a fake profile on Facebook and “friend” the assistant who accepts their request. The actors then use information about b2b social media marketing the assistant’s profile to send a spear-phishing email to the assistant’s work address. Email received, link clicked, payload delivered, foothold established. Without an Anti-Phishing Incident Response Plan, your environment is wide open after that - and all because an employee didn’t have the proper information security training and awareness to guard against a cyber-threat that would seek to exploit her trust. We can help you prepare your employees against cyber and social engineering attacks like these. With Dell SecureWorks Security Awareness Training solutions, we can help you assess your current Information Security Awareness Training programs, design new programs by top IT security advisors and provide specialized training to address areas of greatest concern to your organization. Going beyond compliance, Dell SecureWorks Security Awareness Training Solutions change employee behavior and reduce risk to your organization. Social networks, particularly public ones, have real estate social media marketing become part of the fabric of how we communicate and collaborate as a society. With value from micro-level personal networking to macro-level outreach, social networking has become pervasive in people’s lives and is now becoming a significant driving force in business. These new platforms have provided new approaches to many critical enterprise functions, including identifying.

Social Networking Security Awareness

Most concerns revolve around online reputation management, identity theft, or physical security issues. Social networking creates a risk of posting content that will be damaging to yourself, your profile being hacked or your credentials being compromised, or inviting burglars to your home by publicizing your whereabouts. Facebook faces a security challenge that few companies, or even governments, have ever faced: protecting more than 500 million users of a service social media marketing plans that is under constant attack. I’m a huge proponent of “personal responsibility,” and that means that you are ultimately responsible for protecting yourself. Keep your guard up. Cybercriminals target Facebook frequently. Every time you click on a link, you should be aware of the risks. Be careful about making personal information public. Sharing your mother’s name, your pet’s name, or your boyfriend’s name, for example, provides criminals with clues to guess your passwords. Technology can help make social networking more secure. The most common threats to Facebook users are links to spam and malware sent from compromised accounts. Consumers must be sure to have an active security software subscription, and not to let it lapse. Get a complimentary antivirus software subscription from McAfee. Simply “like” McAfee’s Facebook page, go to “McAfee 4 Free,” and choose your country from the dropdown menu to download a six-month subscription to McAfee’s AntiVirus Plus social media marketing podcast software. The software protects users’ PCs from online threats, viruses, spyware, other malware, and includes the award-winning SiteAdvisor website rating technology. After the six-month McAfee AntiVirus Plus subscription period, Facebook users may be eligible for special discount subscription pricing.

Cyber Security Awareness Month: Social Media at the U of S

Social media is no longer just a tool for personal use. Most units within universities today actively use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to manage marketing and student, faculty and employee interaction. At the U of S alone, there are over 25 Twitter accounts for various units. The ability to reach out to our selected audiences to create awareness of our programs and services and engage our audience is invaluable but with the increased connectedness comes facebook social media marketing increased security challenges. Social networking sites are a prime target for cyber criminals because of the rise of social engineered hacking. Social engineering is the art of manipulating people so they give up confidential information. There are generally two approaches to social media engineering: computer-based and human-based. Computer-based social engineering focuses on phishing and online scams (discussed in last week’s article). Human-based social engineering is slightly different in that it requires interaction with humans; person-to-person contact is used to retrieve desired information. This can include impersonation, posing as an important user or posing as a friend. Social media accounts run by university units and personal social media accounts held by students, faculty and staff are both targets for cyber criminals. You know that convenient GPS system that is embedded in your phone? The location data from it can be embedded into pictures you take with your smartphone. When you upload your pictures, that data can come with it. Now, anyone who sees your photo can examine it for metadata, and potentially see where and when you took that photo! An easy way to see this data would be disadvantages of social media marketing to right click on any picture on your computer, and click on the “Properties” option. Then choose the “Details” tab. Here, you can see the data your photo contains that you might not realize was there. Sure, some of it is harmless, but what if GPS coordinates were embedded in photos of your children at a playground? And this isn’t even the easiest information for someone to learn about you. Simply posting status updates about your vacation could tip off a would-be burglar to your whereabouts.

Design of cyber security awareness game utilizing a social media framework

Social networking sites are a popular medium of interaction and communication. Social networking sites provide the ability to run applications and games to test users' knowledge. The popularity of social networks makes it an ideal tool through which awareness can be created on existing and emerging security threats. This paper proposes an interactive game hosted by social networking sites with the purpose of creating awareness on information security how to do social media marketing threats and vulnerabilities. The game applies principles of good game design which includes: the decisions over hypermedia, multimedia and hypertext to achieve perception, comprehension or projection, comprehensive database of questions, weighted system, use of practical data, automation, dynamcis, effort and user acceptance. The aim of the paper is show the effectiveness of using a virtual tool in cyber awareness creation. This paper will thus deal with the proposal of an interactive web-based game which informs and then tests users about potential security threats and vulnerabilities. This isn’t restricted to just social network sites, but it definitely applies here. With every social networking site we sign up for, there comes a Terms of Service (ToS). I’d be willing to bet that most of us don’t actually read through that agreement. If we did, what I just said about privacy wouldn’t surprise you. Most social networking sites reserve the right to use any of your photos for their advertising purposes. This applies even to photos you mark “private,” or only allow certain friends to see. And once your photo is added to your account, it is being stored on their servers. But what happens when you take a photo off of the site? Surely they delete it from their servers too? Wrong. They don’t have to, and most likely social media marketing pdf don’t. Their money comes from advertising, and what better advertising do they have than using real user photos and information to promote their site. This same idea applies to closing your account. There’s no guarantee your data will be deleted automatically. In fact, the site may require that you contact them directly to request deletion of your data, and that could take weeks!

Social Media and the Use of Personal Information National Cyber Security Awareness Month

The myriad of social networking websites currently available have hundreds of millions of registered users. But just like any kind of cyberspace communication, using social media can involve some risk. Once a user posts information to a social networking site, that information can no longer be considered private and can be used for criminal purposes. Even if you use the highest security settings on your account, others may—intentionally or not—leak your information. And once in the hands of criminals, this personal information can be used to conduct all kinds of cyber attacks against you or your family members, friends, social marketing media or business associates in an effort to obtain additional and even more sensitive personal information. For example, cyber criminals often craft very convincing spear phishing campaigns leveraging information found on social media to obtain more sensitive personal information. Spear phishers target select groups of people with something in common—i.e., they work at the same company, bank at the same financial institution, attend the same college, or order merchandise from the same website. Authentic-looking e-mails are sent to potential victims—ostensibly from organizations or individuals they would normally get e-mails from—asking the recipients to click on embedded links in the e-mail. These links lead to official-looking websites, where victims are asked, for a variety of urgent and legitimate-sounding reasons, to input personal information like passwords, account numbers, user IDs, and PINs. The result? Criminals can get hold of your banking credentials and credit cards numbers, social media for marketing download malware onto your computer, gain access to sensitive company data, and/or hijack your computer for other nefarious purposes. Criminals who troll social networking sites looking for information or people to target for exploitation run the gamut—from sexual predators, hackers, and financial fraudsters to business competitors and foreign state actors.

Social Network and Cyber Threats … A Privileged Attack Vector

The number of cyber treats leveraging social networks is constantly increasing: According to The Symantec “Internet Security Threat Report 2015,” in 2014 70 percent of social media scams were manually shared. The principal problem related to social network scams is related learn social media marketing to the “trust factor”; that is, victims tend to click on something posted by a friend, completely ignoring the risks. As explained by experts at Symantec, in 2014 criminals hijacked the power of “social proof,” the principle that humans attribute more value to something if it is shared or approved by others. It is quite easy to find on social network fraud attempts that invite users to join a fake event or group with incentives such as free gift cards. Joining often requires the victims to provide their credentials or send a text to a premium rate number. The user credentials could open the door of the organization, exposing to the attackers sensitive information regarding the company and its activities. Experts at Symantec have identified the following media threats when dealing with principal social media platforms. Another threat to carefully consider when using social media is the malicious mobile application. The diffusion of the “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies is encouraging promiscuous usage of mobile devices at work. While BYOD can lead to increased productivity, it also has the potential to open company asset importance of social media marketing to cyber attacks. Employees could use apps that hide malicious code or that lack security by design and which, could be exploited to gain control over the mobile device. Malicious mobile apps could allow attackers to steal corporate data and to access repository and services available for employees. The experts at the Veracode security firm recently conducted an interesting analysis that led to this disconcerting conclusion about the promiscuous use of mobile devices in workplace. Veracode scanned hundreds of thousands mobile apps installed in their corporate mobile environment; some of these companies had 35 mobile gambling apps in their environment. The problem with these gambling apps is once again that they enlarge the surface of attack of the organization by leaving employees mobile open to cyber attacks.

Staff training: taking security seriously through comedy

Phil Cracknell, recently appointed head of IT security at TNT Express and until late 2012 director of security at Yell (now Hibu), has a passion for comedy. He believes humour is the key to getting the security message through to all levels of staff. "At Yell we set out to change the culture. I met Jim Shields who runs media company Twist and Shout and is also a stand-up comedian. The discussion was around how do we make IT security awareness stick? We have been trying to cram awareness down people's throats for 20 years," says Cracknell. It was important to get senior level buy-in, he says. "At the time, the chief technology officer of Yell social media marketing university review authorised me to go and make a whole bunch of Star Wars videos all about awareness. We bought Darth Vadar suits. There is one scene where Darth appears at reception and he has forgotten his ID card and he is doing the 'You know who I am' routine. We decided to focus on security as a whole and especially the weak links, such as people writing down passwords." The videos were a massive hit. Cracknell created them in bite-sized chunks, two-minutes long, and emailed them to staff every other day during their first week at Yell. "We looked at the time it took for people to open them up from when they were mailed and they were responding to those quicker than they were responding to any other email," he says. Cracknell went on to set up Rose Tinted Security with Twist and Shout to create humorous videos that come with 3D-style rose-tinted glasses. "We put a whole hotel social media marketing campaign around it that we started to trickle out on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. We used social media to highlight some of the risks of using social media," he says. "These videos got two hits for every member of staff we sent them out to. We know it worked, as people were sending the videos to others who didn't even work for the company."

Social Networking privacy

While websites designed for social networking are not new, they have continued to grow and change over time. They help people not only keep in touch with each other, but also with organizations and activities that interest them. They have also become a new ground for scams and stalkers. There are many opinions on the appropriate level of privacy in social networking sites, sometimes falling along generational lines. Regardless of your opinion, if you use atlanta social media marketing sites like Facebook, you should take a moment to review your privacy settings. When reviewing your settings, think about the variety of people who might see your photos, posts or profile facts: younger family members, co-workers, potential employers, etc. Letting “everyone” or even “friends of friends” see information will open things up to a lot of people. Social networking sites contain applications written by third-parties and connections to external commercial sites. Some of these “apps” may have been written with malicious intent to collect your information or spam your friends with posts you didn’t write. Facebook provides some details on what an app wants to do when you first use it. Pay attention to what information the app wants to access and if it wants to be able to make posts onto your wall. You can review what apps currently have access to your Facebook information under “Privacy Settings” and then under “Apps and Websites.” One of the popular tricks used for spamming on Facebook and similar sites is to tempt you to agree to use an app to gain access to an interesting video or image. These often use social media marketing new york enticing phrasing like “OMG, this is the funniest thing ever!!” and then require you to authorize an application or “complete a survey” to see the video. These apps then collect your information and post the same tempting link under your name to tempt your friends.

How to Boost the Company

For the majority of companies, the social networks represent a privileged instrument to improve the efficiency of their communications and increase the brand reputations. Social networks allow companies to reach a wide audience instantly, increasing the trust social media marketing dallas of customers for the company and its products. Many businesses recognize the benefits of having a social media presence for long-term marketing purposes; however, many are not aware of social media’s security issues. Almost any organization ignores how employees’ own social presence can expose the company to cyber threats that could harm its reputation. The reputation is the pillar for the success of any company and a proper security posture on the social networks could prevent serious damages to their image. Social media offer a huge marketing opportunity at limited costs, but it is important for companies to not underestimate the threat to their reputation. Security experts believe that IT companies are among the most exposed entities to threats because of the young age of most of their workers, which implies a natural propensity to use social networks. As more organizations continue to jump into social media, soon a critical mass will be reached and all the other companies will be social media marketing agencies forced to adopt social media for business matter. The opening to social media by companies is a rapid process; for this reason it is crucial to address risks related to the exposure to new threats related to the new paradigm. Social media offer important business advantages to companies, but they also dramatically enlarge their attack surface. In order to mitigate the security risks, organizations must establish and deploy effective social media usage policies. Unfortunately, in many cases, companies simply limit their action is to prohibiting the access to social media for its employees, a decision that could cause significant disadvantage of the organization respect its competitors.

Organization Social Media Security Policy

Now that we have highlighted the principal threats for organizations that open their business to the social networks, let’s see how a security policy can address the major social media security threats. An organization must institute a policy to regulate employee access and establish guidelines for appropriate behavior of staffers when dealing with social media. Policies must specifically address security issues, but not only those! A social media policy has to define the correct posture of the company on the social media by establishing, for example, what can and cannot be shared and communicated through these search and social media marketing powerful platforms. Once a policy is adopted by the organization, it needs to be continuously reviewed and, if necessary, updated and enforced according to the evolution of cyber threats and new needs of the company.The above items must be properly addressed by organizations that intend to protect their assets from threats exploiting social media as an attack vector. The first line of protection against threats over social networks must be implemented in an end-user machine; this means that employees must be trained to adopt a secure posture to protect the devices they use to access social media accounts. It is essential to educate users on the best practices to follow in order to protect their machines (desktops, laptops, mobile devices). Users must protect their desktop and mobile devices by enabling password-protected screen savers and locking them when they walk away from them. All the devices must have screensaver timeouts; in this way, if the user leaves the system, the password-protected screensaver comes up after a specific interval of time, preventing unauthorized physical accesses. Do not forget that a threat agent could also be an insider or any social media marketing applications occasional guest that accesses the organization or that has the possibility to access the user’s device left unguarded. An unauthorized access to a user’s computer or laptop could allow an ill-intentioned person to install a RAT or any other spyware and harvest user credentials. Similar malware could also allow an attacker to impersonate victims over social media by stealing their credentials. Another element to address in a security policy for social media is the authentication of employees to the social network accounts. Take care to separate the use of a personal account from the corporate account; their simultaneous use could generate confusion and result in data leakage. Organizations have to enable two-factor authentication for the accounts of the principal social network they use. Another critical concern is the password security; employees must choose strong passwords, avoiding to share and not properly protect them.

why security awareness is crucial for employees

People are now the weakest link in the security chain. The latest security technology may protect core systems, but it cannot protect against employees giving away information on social networks or using their own, less secure, mobile devices for business purposes. "It is a myth that technology will protect you," says Tony Dyhouse, cybersecurity director at the UK Technology Strategy Board's ICT Knowledge Transfer Network. "Those who attack us have no wish to spend a lot of time and money defeating our technology. They attack the user, which is much easier." It has become increasingly important to embed ICT security awareness marketing using social media at all levels of an organisation. "The most at-risk personnel are uninformed, innocent and unaware employees," says Kevin Bailey, research director, European security software, at research company IDC. "Many external attacks – more than 60% – target employees via social engineering," he says. "They were opportunistic, exploiting activities such as unexpected communication through email and social media." IDC reported a growth of more than 40% in the uptake of smart devices during 2011–12, compared with a flat PC market. Employees are increasingly using their own devices for work, and much of this activity is out of their employer's control. "A recent survey shows that over 30% of respondents believe that BYOD [bring your own device] is already happening informally in their organisations," says Bailey. Many people are familiar with dodgy-looking emails purporting to be from a bank and they know not to click on links. The latest threats are much more sophisticated and personal, including "spearphishing", whereby the attacker uses los angeles social media marketing information gleaned from social media to personalise an email to an individual. People are much more likely to open an email that has specific personal information in the header. They may even open

Threats To Your Security When Using Social Media

Social networking has changed the way we interact with friends and associates. While social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FourSquare, and Google+, play a significant role in our lives, they are also a high risk for security threats. With hundreds of millions of users online, these tools not only attract friends and family wanting to stay in touch, but they also attract people wanting to know about you for the wrong reasons. Be aware of the top five security threats currently out there to help you stay safe online. Identity thieves gather personal information from social media sites. Even if you have your account social media marketing resume on the highest security settings, there are still ways for an identity thief to get your information. Most social network sites have information that is required, such as email address or birthday. It’s common for an identity thief to hack an email account by using social information. For example, a common technique to get personal information is by clicking on “forgot password” and trying to recover the information through email. Once the thief has access to your email account, they then have access to all information on your social networking sites. Hackers love social networking, going right to the source to interject malicious code. The codes hackers use can steal your identity, inject viruses to your computer, and obstruct bank account information, to name a few. Shortened URLs, such as those created on bit.ly, are especially susceptible to hackers. Shortened URLs can trick users into visiting harmful sites where personal information can be compromised because the full URL is not seen. When you use social networking sites, you are posting personal information. Once information is posted online, it’s no longer private and can fall into the wrong hands. The more you post, the more vulnerable you become to those who may wish to harm you. Even with the highest security settings, friends, associates, effective social media marketing and even the brands you “like” on your networking sites, can inadvertently leak information about you. The websites you subscribe to, the apps you download, and the games you play on social networking sites all contain personal information about you. Every time you browse a website, companies can put invisible markers on your computer called cookies. In theory, no two cookies are alike. When you are online, these cookies track your activity as you move from site to site.

The Privacy and Security Repercussions

More and more people are using social media sites to get the latest news and connect with others. The more comfortable we become with these sites, the more apt we are to share personal details about ourselves and let our guard down as we interact with others. Are we sharing too much private information? Is what we share -- both deliberately and inadvertently -- and what we click putting our privacy and security at risk? The values at the core of networking sites – openess, connecting, and sharing with others – unfortunately are the very aspects which allow cyber criminals to use these sites as a vector social media marketing campaigns for for various kinds of bad online behavior. In fact, reports of malware and spam rose an astounding 70 percent on social networks in 2009, according to an industry report from security firm Sophos. "Social networking sites are meant to get as many users in one place as possible on one platform, and for attackers there's a lot of return-on-investment in going after them," said security analyst Shawn Moyer, aptly describing the climate as a perfect storm of social engineering and bad programming. The notoriety of Facebook and Twitter make these social media sites a focal point for privacy discussions and a prime target for malicious activity. Let's take a more in-depth look at recent leading privacy and security issues. In this case, you were referred to that page by Google. If the booby-trapped page is designed to activate when you arrive at the page via a Google search, it will release its payload. However, if you typed the URL directly into your browser, there would be no referrer and the malicious page's payload wouldn't activate. Lately, referrer headers have been making headlines for an entirely different reason: leaking private information on social media sites. The Wall Street Journal, citing an AT&T Labs and Worcester Polytechnic Institute paper, reported that a "privacy loophole" found on social networking sites, social media as a marketing tool including Facebook and MySpace, allowed for data to be shared with advertisers through referrer headers sent by browser software -- data that could potentially be used to identify users in spite of promises from the companies that user information isn't shared without specific consent. "Merely clicking an advertiser's ad reveals to the advertiser the user's Facebook username or user ID," explained security researcher Ben Edelman. "With default privacy settings, the advertiser can then see almost all of a user's activity on Facebook, including name, photos, friends, and more." This information was leaked to the advertisers because Facebook embeds usernames and user IDs in URLs which are transmitted to advertisers through HTTP referrer headers. Facebook responded with a message on "Protecting Privacy with Referrers," saying it quickly fixed the issue, which it called a "potential" problem.

Be diligent about privacy when merging social media websites

In 2014, it is likely that many of the smaller and up-and-coming social media websites will merge together so that they are better able to compete with the industry giants. Although websites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are currently the heavy hitters in the social media world, there are also many smaller websites out there. Additionally, it is likely that social media websites will continue the trend of acquiring start-up companies social media marketing pricing in order to use their cutting-edge new technology. By doing so, social media websites will continue to be able to add plug-ins and applications that will in turn draw even more users. As social media websites rush to add even more features and functionality to their websites, they could potentially overlook key privacy considerations. After all, when one company merges with another or when they add new technological features, there always seem to be a few “growing pains” along the way. Therefore, one of the top privacy concerns for 2014 will be that social media websites are diligent about privacy and security even during rapid growth periods. Single access sign-on is another social media trend that is likely to continue into 2014. Using single access sign-on technology, users can log in once and then use multiple websites without the need to sign in again. Although the convenience of this feature tends to make it popular with users, it brings with it a whole social media marketing blog other host of security and privacy concerns. As the use of single access sign-on becomes more common, it is likely that websites will also start to share information. This kind of access will make it easier for a single social media website to show your actions and activities on other websites. Social media websites will have to take care to ensure user privacy; otherwise this highly convenient feature could become a liability.

When it comes to privacy and security issues on social networks, "the sites most

When it comes to privacy and security issues on social networks, "the sites most likely to suffer from issues are the most popular ones," Graham Cluley, Chief Technology Officer at UK tech security firm Sophos says. But security issues and privacy issues are entirely two different beasts. A security issue occurs when a hacker gains unauthorized access to a site's protected coding or written language. Privacy issues, those involving social media marketing campaign the unwarranted access of private information, don't necessarily have to involve security breaches. Someone can gain access to confidential information by simply watching you type your password. But both types of breaches are often intertwined on social networks, especially since anyone who breaches a site's security network opens the door to easy access to private information belonging to any user. But the potential harm to an individual user really boils down to how much a user engages in a social networking site, as well as the amount of information they're willing to share. In other words, the Facebook user with 900 friends and 60 group memberships is a lot more likely to be harmed by a breach than someone who barely uses the site. Security lapses on social networks don't necessarily involve the exploitation of a user's private information. Take, for example, the infamous "Samy" MySpace XSS worm that effectively shut the site down for a few days in October 2005. The "Samy" virus (named after the virus' creator) was fairly harmless, social media marketing strategy template and the malware snarkily added the words "Samy Is My Hero" to the top of every affected user's MySpace profile page. A colossal inconvenience, naturally, but nobody's identity was stolen and no private information was leaked. In the end, the problem galvanized the MySpace team to roll up their sleeves and seriously tighten the site's security. Result: no major break-ins since. Unfortunately, these kinds of breaches, purely for sport in "Samy's" case, are rare.

Security Issues With Social Networking Sites

Increase the security of your social media account by always logging out when you step away from your laptop or computer. It's best to go one step further and close down the browser you were using to view your account. If you leave your account logged in, you set yourself up to be hacked because anyone who can get to your computer can access your account, change the password or even post items and communicate with your friends as if they are you. Logging out and shutting down the browser is even more important if you use a public computer. Viruses and malware often find their way onto your computer through those social media marketing service annoying, but sometimes enticing ads. However, on the Web, just like in real life, if an offer seems to good to be true, then it probably is. Save yourself a potential security headache - don't click. Be careful of who you accept invitations from when building your online network. Connecting and sharing information with people you don't know can be dangerous. If you receive friend requests from strangers, it's best to stay away. Further, if you receive friend requests from people you do know, but are already connected with via the same site, it's possible that someone has set up a fake account. Avoid accepting duplicate requests, instead checking in with the 'real' person to see if the request is legitimate. You should also be careful when connecting with a celebrity's account, as scammers sometimes pose as famous people. Make sure it is their official, legitimate account and not a stranger pretending to be them before you accept their 'friend' invitation. Part of the appeal of social media sites are all the various games and apps. Even though a significant number of them are safe, you do grant the app a certain level of permission concerning your information. Make sure you know what the app is viewing and sharing before agreeing to the terms. Social media sites provide you with the ability to restrict who has access to your information. For example, social media marketing experts Facebook (like others) lets you decide who your friends are and what content they can view. One practice to increase your account's security is to disable most of the options and then re-open them once you understand what the settings specifically mean to your account. In reality, you probably want different types of content to be displayed to different people, with the most being available to known friends and the least to acquaintances.

How to be Safe, Secure and Social

What do your long lost childhood best friend, your college roommate, your boss and your significant other all have in common? If you are one of the hundreds of millions of people using social networks, there’s a good chance that you are linked to them through an online relationship. The information you share with your online contacts allows you to keep in touch without much effort. But who else is looking at that information? And how are they going to use it? Online social networks are websites that allow users to build connections and relationships to other Internet users. Social networks store information remotely, social media marketing conference rather than on a user’s personal computer. Social networking can be used to keep in touch with friends, make new contacts and find people with similar interests and ideas. However, many people besides friends and acquaintances are interested in the information people post on social networks. Identity thieves, scam artists, debt collectors, stalkers, and corporations looking for a market advantage are using social networks to gather information about consumers. Companies that operate social networks are themselves collecting a variety of data about their users, both to personalize the services for the users and to sell to advertisers. This fact sheet will provide information about the advantages and disadvantages of using social networks, what kind of information may be safe to post and how to protect it, as well as who is able to access different types of information posted to these networks. These networks allow users to create detailed online profiles and connect with other users, with an emphasis on social relationships such as friendship. For example, Facebook, Friendster and MySpace are platforms for communicating with contacts. These networks social media marketing articles often involve users sharing information with other approved users, such as one’s gender, age, interests, educational background and employment, as well as files and links to music, photos and videos. These platforms may also share selected information with individuals and applications that are not authorized contacts.