Social media is used by both companies and individuals, but the same information security principles apply to both user cases. Social media has a long memory and services can be used by anyone. Therefore, common sense is must and the threats to the services must be understood.
1. Is social media secure?
Social media is a goldmine for scammers and identity thieves because people add their personal information to services, which makes the work for scammers much easier. As a result, social media services are subject to many security threats.
- According to the insurance services company mySafety, there were 138,000 victims of identity theft in Finland in 2018, which was 30,000 more than last year.
- The assumption is that in a soma, communication is rarely private. The TikTok service has been accused of spying and selling the data to the Chinese state.
- “500 million people data leak shakes LinkedIn” CyberNews says someone put the data of 500 million LinkedIn users on a common hacker forum.
Question: Is social media secure? Answer: No.
Think carefully what information you should share about yourself or Metropolia on social media sites.
2. Secure management of your social media account
- If using Metropolia's social media services is part of your official job, you are responsible for the security of your account. Make sure you use any security measures you may have, such as 2-step verification and a strong password.
- Your social media service provider does not usually guarantee the retention of data on your service, so make sure you have copies of the data transferred to the service elsewhere.
- Please review the settings that affect the privacy of your user profile and update them as necessary.
- It is better to remove little-used or “forgotten” social media accounts than to leave them unused. Unused accounts pose a security risk.
3. Checklist for social media
- Use common sense, do not disclose any personal information about anyone. At worst, an outside party can exploit the information in scam attempts.
- Do not use the same password for social media services as for Metropolia's own services.
- Contacts from new people must always be treated with caution. It’s easy to impersonate another person on social media services.
- Malware spreads on social media in the same way as email. All messages containing links must be treated with caution.
4. Secure data processing
The same data storage and processing guidelines apply to all social media channels. Only public material may be stored and / or published in the systems of the Services. Note! Copyright must be taken into account in all publications. Copyright means the author's initial exclusive right to decide on the use of his work. Meaning others do not have the right to use the work without the author's permission.
