Increased Visibility

Social media is being widely adopted as a marketing tool and vehicle for reaching customers in unprecedented ways. You can’t watch television without seeing a commercial that mentions either Facebook or Twitter. Even if you work for a company that is not using social media, I guarantee that both your employees and customers are. Those employees could breach company security, hurt the company’s image, or open the company up to malware.

ISACA released an interesting and though provoking white paper digging in to the risks that social media poses. It covers vulnerabilities, threats, risks, and mitigating techniques.

http://www.isaca.org/Knowledge-Center/Research/Documents/Social-Media-Wh-Paper-26-May10-Research.pdf

• Introduction of viruses and malware to the organizational network
• Exposure to customers and the enterprise through a fraudulent or hijacked corporate presence
• Unclear or undefined content rights to information posted to social media sites
• A move to a digital business model may increase customer service expectations
• Mismanagement of electronic communications that may be impacted by retention regulations or e-discovery
• Use of personal accounts to communicate work-related information
• Employee posting of pictures or information that link them to the enterprise
• Excessive employee use of social media in the workplace
• Employee access to social media via enterprise-supplied mobile devices (smartphones, personal digital assistants [PDAs])