The Good
Communication. Social media is a great communication tool, it helps you stay connected with friends and family and even helps ignite long lost friendships. You can have a voice and communicate your thoughts, feelings and opinions, create photo albums of special occasions, learn about news going on around the world as well as help share awareness and education about a range of welfare activities and charitable causes. The vast variety of information shared on social media can help us positively in a range of ways.
3.2 billion people use social media worldwide, that’s 42% of the current population.
Social media can relieve social isolation and increase confidence and could open doors for you career wise. Broaden your knowledge, opportunities and overall enrich your life.
As a business owner, social media can be used to promote your business and to “add value” to your service or product. It’s a great way to get your name out there and for customers/clients to get to know your business, what you do and how they can communicate with you.
The Bad
Spending time on a virtual social platform takes you away from real life and although it’s a great communication tool, people often forget that they can put their phone down for the evening and spend quality time, in real time, in person with the people themselves, rather than through social media.
Additionally, it’s so easy to get obsessed with social media, checking likes, scrolling endlessly and sharing “too much” information. Studies indicate that social media is potentially more addictive than alcohol and cigarettes so it’s important to understand how much time is a healthy amount of time as social media can damage your mental health.
The Ugly
The ugly side of social media starts with “cyber” and ends in “crime”. The figures for social network engineered attacks on organisations accounted for over 90% of all successful breaches. This enormous stat emphases that you must be cautious of what you are posting as everything contributes towards your digital footprint and this is what could put you at risk of being targeted. Hackers stalk your social media accounts to gather information you post to then use this against you, either by impersonating you and gaining access to your bank accounts or by email spoofing, where they then construct convincing emails to unsuspecting employees which could cause chaos for your business in the form of malware and ransomware, putting your organisation and data at risk.
What is email spoofing? Business email compromise? CEO fraud?
Cyber security should be taken seriously and we recommend a multi-layered approach to minimise risk. Download our Cyber Security Datasheet for more information on our solution.
How do i stay safe on social media?
There’s a few ways you can keep safe online. One of the main ways is simply educating yourself on types of scams, as being aware will make you more cautious and will give you the knowledge to help spot criminal behaviour. Learn about email spoofing, also known as business email compromise and CEO fraud so you’ll be more clued up when a convincing email arrives into your inbox and understand the process of a SIM swap scam so you can put the ball back in your court.
One thing you can do yourself is make your social media accounts “private” so only your followers can see you posts and personal information. We recommenced that you hide your birthday and any other personal information that a cyber criminal could use to their advantage to impersonate you. Not sure how private your personal information is? Stop, Look and Secure, be sure to get clued up on privacy with our below blog.
We strongly recommend that you enable two-factor or multi-factor authentication on all of your social media accounts (and any programmes or websites you use, such as your email account) as this gives you an extra layer of protection. Understand passwords and 2FA by reading our blog below.
It’s important to understand your digital footprint and how it can impact you. Criminals are getting more and more smarter so it is important to be in control of your online presence, otherwise cyber criminals may use the content you post against you. Don’t get lost in all of the noise and ensure you are monitoring your social posts to ensure you are not putting yourself or business in danger.