- Jun 24, 2016
- 636
Social media security:
Avoiding the phishing threats from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
Social media may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is getting harder and harder to ignore for organisations – especially from a cyber security perspective.
A range of recent research has highlighted the increasing dangers that organisations face from employees’ social media usage.
…
Samani at Intel Security says that the main danger from social media historically would be a phishing approach.
“It doesn’t take a lot to do a targeted attack from the information that is available online through Twitter and LinkedIn.”
He says that “promiscuous” activity on social media has made it much easier to carry out these attacks.
Phishing essentially aims to trick a user into giving up personal information.
Information harvested from social media could be used in a spear phishing email is more targeted still, appearing to be from an individual or business that seems to be known to the victim.
A common email scam, for example, sends an email to all of a victim’s contacts, claiming to have been stranded at a foreign airport and asking for the money to fly home.
The social media-driven attack could take key information from the profile, such as their job and their interests. This is then fed into the phishing email to convince the victim that this comes from someone who knows them.
There are other risks. Fraudulent social media accounts can send malicious links or adware.
…
A good starting point in preventing these threats is creating a social media policy for employees...
Continue reading this article at the link at the top of the page
Avoiding the phishing threats from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
Social media may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is getting harder and harder to ignore for organisations – especially from a cyber security perspective.
A range of recent research has highlighted the increasing dangers that organisations face from employees’ social media usage.
…
Samani at Intel Security says that the main danger from social media historically would be a phishing approach.
“It doesn’t take a lot to do a targeted attack from the information that is available online through Twitter and LinkedIn.”
He says that “promiscuous” activity on social media has made it much easier to carry out these attacks.
Phishing essentially aims to trick a user into giving up personal information.
Information harvested from social media could be used in a spear phishing email is more targeted still, appearing to be from an individual or business that seems to be known to the victim.
A common email scam, for example, sends an email to all of a victim’s contacts, claiming to have been stranded at a foreign airport and asking for the money to fly home.
The social media-driven attack could take key information from the profile, such as their job and their interests. This is then fed into the phishing email to convince the victim that this comes from someone who knows them.
There are other risks. Fraudulent social media accounts can send malicious links or adware.
…
A good starting point in preventing these threats is creating a social media policy for employees...
Continue reading this article at the link at the top of the page
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