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For all their good, social media platforms are at risk of being compromised, putting your organization’s privacy and security at risk. Learn more about social media threats and narrative attacks you should know about and how to protect your organization. 1. Phishing Attacks. Phishing is a threat that many users have encountered.
- Don't rely on social media for news. If this wasn’t already obvious before the Covid-19 pandemic, it certainly is now. Bad information literally costs lives and there is plenty of the stuff floating around on platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
- Don't get caught in echo-chambers. If this is the first time you’ve heard the term, an ‘echo chamber‘ is a place where you encounter only beliefs or opinions that coincide with your own and where existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered.
- Turn off push notifications. Another downright diabolical aspect of social media that also takes advantage of human psychology is push notifications.
- Limit your time spent on social media. This one may seem obvious, but not many of us actually do it. Limiting the amount of time you spend on your favourite platforms doesn’t only help you to avoid the many forms of social media manipulation, it also gives you more time to dedicate to the people and things that are actually important in your life.
- Identify the Abuse. Figure out what’s happening to you. Is it a mean-spirited critique? (“You’re the world’s worst writer.”) Is it an insult-riddled comment?
- Document the Abuse. Keep in mind that if you report online abuse that violates a platform’s terms of service and succeed in getting it taken down, you could lose valuable evidence.
- Assess Your Safety. Has the online abuse made you concerned for your physical safety or that of your family or colleagues? The anonymity afforded by the internet, alongside the proliferation of bots and other fake accounts, can make it very hard to judge.
- Block, Mute, Report. Blocking, muting, and reporting abuse on social media platforms are each distinct actions. You can block accounts (so they cannot communicate with or follow you), and you can sometimes mute accounts or even specific posts or words (so you don’t have to see them).
- Social engineering. Social engineering describes any cyberattack a hacker may use to trick you into compromising your personal information. This could be in the form of a phishing email sent to your inbox or a smishing text sent to your iPhone or Android.
- Phishing. Phishing on social media occurs when a cybercriminal sends you an email pretending to be a reputable social media platform. The message may alert you of an “account issue” that you need to resolve immediately and provide a specific link to follow.
- Malware. You can look at malware as one of the more concerning threats on social media because it’s often the vehicle hackers use to deliver their cyberattacks.
- Data breaches. Social media sites are among the most targeted sites on the internet today. In fact, over 200 million Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin users had their data exposed in a breach in 2021.
Nov 4, 2020 · 4. Careful What You Click. Finally, be cautious of links and content shared online, especially from people you don’t know well. If an article or webpage looks interesting, you can go search for the content on your own outside of the social media site. To help stop the spread of misinformation and malicious content, don’t share links unless ...
Nov 21, 2017 · 3. Don’t accept friend requests from strangers. One way to control who sees your posts or has access to information about you is to only accept friend requests from people you know on platforms like Snapchat, Facebook and LinkedIn. 4. Be careful when you check-in or share your location.
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2 days ago · 1. Identity Theft. Identity theft is a common social media threat that can happen to anyone who shares images or personal information online. Impersonation happens when someone uses public information and pictures to create a fake online profile and either pretend they are that person or create a new persona entirely.
