What are the Risks of Social Media Engagement?

For most brands today, social media has become a crucial element in their marketing and customer service success, creating important stakeholder engagement.  However, participation is not without risk.  Some of the more common social media security risks are:

• Human error – whether that is sending an accidental tweet or unknowingly clicking on a phishing link, human error is one of the most common social media security threats to brands today.
• Not paying attention on social media – not paying attention to your social media accounts can have serious consequences. Leaving your account unmonitored, for example, puts it at risk of being infected by a malicious virus that could spread to your followers or worse, a hacker hijacks the account and sends inappropriate content to your followers.
• Malicious apps and attacks – malicious software, sadly, is quite common on the Internet, ranging from malware and spyware to adware and the evil ransomware variety (of which there were more than 4,000 attacks every day in 2016).
• Phishing scams – phishing scams use social media to trick people into handing over sensitive information.
• Privacy settings – many businesses continue to put their reputations at risk by not implementing strict privacy settings. As a result, hackers can easily take control of a brand’s social channels and wreak havoc at will— sending fraudulent posts to followers or making adjustments to a channel’s appearance.