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.