[Here’s Your Guide] Understanding Social Media Threats

As modern living depends on adopting various digital services such as social media, the need to secure our critical data and personal information has become a gnawing concern to all. While data drives our business and the digital world, understanding the current threat landscape is our ultimate defense to minimize the risk of falling victims to online threats and data loss.

Essential Facts

As per the latest data from the Global Digital Report, a quick glimpse of the emerging trends across our digital transactions shows that:

1. For this year, the number of active social media users has reached 4.2bn with Facebook leading the top five most widely used platforms such as YouTube, What’s App, and Instagram (statista.com).

2. Users of social media through mobile phones have grown to 99%.

3. 98% of consumers rely on social media to guide them in their purchases.

4. Social engineering attacks have increased by 15.1% causing higher alarm for businesses relying on social media for their brand marketing.

For a deep dive on how you can prevent cyber threats in social media, join our upcoming webcast Danger in Plain Sight: Cyber Threats in Social Media —Access the most timely and relevant issues about cyber threats and best countermeasures!

Emerging Threats to Watch Out For

Attackers can easily collect data from the users’ accounts and gain more access to personal information. Once the data have been collected, they would launch their attack! Some of the methods they use are:

1. Social Engineering – Attackers would call unsuspicious victims and lure them into transferring money into their accounts.

2. Phishing – Target users would often receive spoof email messages and attackers would trick them to click on malicious links.

3. Spread Malware – In this method, attackers would create domains or websites and would trick users into downloading malware.

4. Data Breach – A cyber incident in which personal or sensitive data is taken or used without consent from the authorized entity.

Awareness is the key to preventing threats from online predators. As attackers get more sophisticated in their tactics, individuals and business employees can get themselves educated on how to protect their sensitive data. While disclosing too much information poses higher risks for account takeover, this only means that they should be controlled.