An Investigation of How Businesses Are Highly Influenced by Social Media Security

Social media plays an immensely important role in business nowadays. With the social media platform and interactions continuously growing, an increasing number of organizations are engaging into it. The idea of collaboration via social networks is also a growing trend. Although social media benefits the companies, it also poses certain threats. Companies have the likelihood facing privacy invasion as well as encountering leakage of confidential and sensitive data. As a result, firms tend to bear a reputational risk within this social media era which is undoubtedly caused by the lack of information security.

This paper discusses the information security risks caused towards social media. It examines three important aspects: privacy, data leakage and human factors. The study uses interviews and surveys as research instruments in order to prove that these issues are critical and overlooked. In the discussion part, it highlights the reasons for which the aforementioned concerns are generated by the companies and the existing problems. Furthermore, in order to ensure information security and to eliminate the risks, a management strategy containing policy, SETA (security education, training and awareness) and technical control are proposed.