All the modern day social media programs have some sort of privacy/security tools to simply protect you and give you privacy. Security and privacy settings such as a password for login, a privacy setting on your page, etc help ensure you have as much privacy as desired. Another way these social media sites help ensure there users are protected is they may allow you to hide your information, such as your hometown or birthdate. But as you may know, as of now, there are ways people are cracking the system and evading people’s privacy.
Over the past year, numerous, high-profile social media accounts have been hacked and tampered with. For example, over the past summer, multiple Twitter accounts were hacked that belonged to businesses around the world: “the Associated Press account was hacked in late April, along with those of 60 Minutes and 48 Hours (both CBS properties); the Syrian Electronic Army got into the Onion account in early May; and now Sky News just saw its Twitter account compromised as well.”(techrepublic)
The easiest way one of those accounts was hacked, was by someone simply getting the password from an employee. The Onion’s account was hacked after someone created a fake login page that required a Twitter password. That is the easiest, and most preventable way of getting your account hacked. The reason the account was hacked was because too many people had the account password and therefore someone slipped up.
With social media is slowly breaking into the business world. Businesses are starting to invest more and more into their social media efforts, which means they need to make sure these accounts are secure. Here is a list to help assist just that, account safety:
“1. Use strong passwords
2. Update privacy settings regularly
3. Beware “password check” sites
4. Partition work and personal social accounts
5. Limit hardware and account access
6. Give IT more control
7. Make social media explicit in security policies”(Informationweek)
Good thing is, as social media develops, so will it’s security and privacy settings! But have you ever been hacked? I know I have numerous times! (But not exactly by a hacker, more along the lines of I left my Facebook logged in)
Sources:
Casey, Kevin. “InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology.”InformationWeek. N.p., 26 Apr. 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.
Lambert, Patrick. “Keeping Your Corporate Social Media Accounts Secure.” TechRepublic. N.p., 22 May 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.
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