Dangers Lurking In Social Media, You Should Be Aware of as a Business Executive

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Dangers Lurking In Social Media, You Should Be Aware of as a Business Executive

Fine, we can’t dispute the fact that social media can come in handy for a business looking to make new connections and provide better-personalized services to their customers. At the end of last month, we featured an article on “Why Social Media is important to You, as a Business Executive.”

But, there is always two sides to a story; the good and the bad, social media is no  exception. Today we share with you some possible dangers lurking in social media that you as a business executive should be aware of:

Dangerous Links

Most people let their guard down while on social media; after all it is a platform where you are supposed to be connecting with families and friends. Well, that was at the initial stages of social media, now companies, governments, organization and even fraudsters, hackers can be found on social media.

You ought to be more careful with the links you click on social media. Hackers could present you with attractive pictures with links on your news feeds. When you click the link, you unknowingly download malicious codes that could be programmed to steal your private information, infect your device and network among other things. This can be referred to as baiting, phishing or click-jacking.

As a Business Executive, you need to ensure maximum security in terms of antivirus and antimalware being installed in your company’s computers and network. Also create awareness among your staff about online safety measures.

Bring your own device to work policy

There is this growing trend among companies, where they allow staff to use their own devices (laptops, tablets and smartphones) to do work for the company. As a manager, this would seem like the best option, given the amount of cash you would save on buying computers, laptops and other office hardware.

It will also improve workers’ productivity since, by using the same device both at work and home, they can have easy workflow continuity. But can you really vouch for the security safeguards in your employees’ devices?

They could be downloading a number of apps, visiting numerous websites, and yet they don’t have a reliable antivirus and antimalware installed in their devices. Without proper security setup in your employees’ devices, company information stored in these devices could be compromised. Staff devices could infect the company’s entire network with malware, spyware and viruses.

Security Breach on Social Networks

In the last two months, we feature articles on Gmail and Snapchat being hacked. Even big social networks like Facebook and Twitter have reported a number of attacks in the past. The good thing is, they are always upgrading their server security among other security measures.

But still that doesn’t mean that we can be assured that they are hack-proof. Thus, as a Business Executive you should discourage your staff from storing sensitive data about the company on social media. There are those who assume storing data on their social media account guarantees them the same level of security as cloud computing vendors; this is not necessarily true.

Setting up Company’s Social Media Policy

To prevent employee misbehavior while on social media and increasing cyber security threats from outside; a company should come up with a social media policy to outline the acceptable behaviors on social media. This also extends to choosing who has the username and password to company’s social media accounts; the IT department should be on the lookout and flag any inappropriate use of the company’s account.

The above are some few tips on social media that will make you not only enhance your customer experience, but also give your clients a more personalized service and not compromise your online safety. Without any governing set of conducts, social media campaign could backfire and paint a very negative picture of your organization.

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