Computer security in social networks

Social networks are sometimes the Trojan horse by which a cyber criminal can obtain private data from our company. The lack of caution when handling social media sometimes leads companies to make mistakes that can later prove very expensive. However, computer security measures can be applied to social networks to prevent these problems from occurring.

In this post we would like to address you, an SME entrepreneur, who is working in the world of digital marketing to achieve your goals on the Internet. We want to inform you about how to make good use of social networks to avoid unnecessary risks.

Principles of computer safety in social networks

If we want to take care of computer security in social networks, we should comply with some principles. We summarize them as follows:

• Caution: On social networks you should be careful about what you read, downloads and links you enter.
• Prevention: even if you think something is not going to happen, it is not relevant. What is relevant is preventing the risk, however low, of it happening.
• Responsibility: our social networks are a public channel, open to our customers and potential customers. Our company’s communication depends, to a large extent, on what we do on social networks.
• Security: we must make every effort to ensure the security of our social networks, starting with creating strong passwords.

Social networks are not something secondary in your company, but a tool that well used can bring you many benefits. But if we leave it aside it can become a nightmare.

You don’t have to be afraid of social media. But we’re going to give you some safety tips to follow so you can avoid computer security problems in social networks.

Do not click on links in messages from suspicious users

On more than one occasion, you will find messages from Twitter users that include a link to you. In that message they inform you of something very suggestive, inviting you to enter that page. It can be just advertising, but in some cases it can be something more. They may redirect you to a page where there is malware, or steal your data to access your Twitter account.

Simply put, you should not open links that are sent to you by direct message. Or check, depending on the information the author gives you, that the page can be accessed through Google.

Be careful with the applications you download

Just as we talk about links sent to you, you should be careful with applications, especially Facebook applications. There are certain Facebook apps that even promise to let you know who’s coming to your profile. This is not directly possible, nor is it legal. This is something that Facebook does not allow you to know under any circumstances, since it would not be respecting the privacy of the users.

You should completely avoid these types of Facebook apps that promise what they cannot deliver. Always inform yourself about the applications you are going to install on your Facebook, ask for information, check in forums that are not a trick to access your account.

Controls administration permissions

Often companies will work with external community managers, interns or employees who will use social network accounts. We must be careful with the permissions we give them. We never know what might happen; an employee who is upset with the company may leave and create a problem for you, posting information on your Facebook without your permission, or even removing you as a user and keeping the page.

It is a real danger that we are not careful with the permissions of the administrators. If you hire a community manager or put an employee to work with your social networks, make sure you play the role of administrator. That the employee can only post and read information, but not delete the account, or delete you.

The same thing we say for Facebook applies to other social networks. There are programs such as TweetDeck in which you can give permission to publish to an external contributor, without having to pass on your Twitter password.

Log out of your user account when you are done

You should log out of your account on any social network when you’re done. Especially if you post or view social networks from a computer outside your company.

You don’t really know who’s going to connect to that computer after you. You also don’t know if the computer is scheduled to delete the temporary data, or it will remember the next time someone connects to your Facebook or Twitter account.

Take care of your personal account as well as your company’s

The same as we apply to your business account in your social networks, you must apply it to your personal account. If your personal page is hacked, you run the risk that the pages you manage will be affected too.

Therefore, be careful with the way you manage your personal account on social networks. Especially if you are linked to a company site.

We hope that these tips will help you to improve your computer security on your company’s social networks.