.png)
When it comes to establishing your business on a social media platform, a lot of teamwork and insight goes into its strategy. These calculations apply to tone, values, visuals, color, and messaging to find the right audience to interact with your content. What’s also important in maintaining social media is the security of general accounts and who monitors activity across these accounts. In the case of our social media presence at Ekaru, a small business MSP specializing in cybersecurity located within the outer metropolitan area of Boston serving small to medium sized clients. Our values are to be friendly, helpful, insightful, provide knowledgeable articles that align, bring up conversations surrounding awareness of good and bad cybersecurity practices to learn from. Along with cybersecurity practices to implement within your business, questions you may ask yourself are ‘how can I maintain a healthy social media presence that can apply for my business and self?
Social Media & Compromised Accounts
If there’s one thing social media and cybersecurity have in common is how they are both evolving right in front of our eyes with new stories, events and in hackers trying to break into your accounts especially your social media. The important perspective to focus on is how do we respond to these threats and how we can apply security steps to our own privacy and devices in the future. Unfortunately, there are instances that have occurred where a businesses account was compromised by hackers, then quickly posting content that is unauthorized by the business affecter’s team and inappropriate.
In recent memory that has everyone talking, the compromised business social media account, Elmo from hit series Sesame Street. The values of characters from Sesame Street, including Elmo are providing education to young minds on a diverse range of topics. Targeting multiple demographics, friendly education to all ages to be friendly and helpful. Elmo, that is a household name, wants everyone to understand themselves, the world around them, and have the knowledge to be the best version of themselves through the ups and downs life provides.
There have also been other accounts that have been compromised in the past such as businesses, Ticketmaster, Dell, and Wendys to name a few. As someone who is actively aware of unfortunate events such as hacking, you may be asking yourself, ‘how did these hacks occur and what can I do to assure my safety online and on my social media accounts?’
Outside of Elmo’s social media account being compromised, lets talk about how we can keep social media accounts secure.
Signs Your Social Media Account May be Compromised
Did you know that “9 in 10 people say they know a person whose social media profile had been hacked? Social media accounts are frequently targeted by hackers and your accounts are likely at risk” with sophisticated cyberattacks that ignite an emotionally reactive and flustered state.
Source: https://www.uschamber.com/co/grow/marketing/business-hacked-on-social-media
According to U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), if you find your account in a compromised position if you receive one of the following notifications:
1. Unable to login or access your accounts
2. You are notified about a changed username and password you did not authorize in your account.
3. Login notification from a location you yourself are not in and from an unknown device.
4. Your friends, and family you have on social media get sent messages that are not from your malicious links, requests for money, anything to bring those you care about with a sense of urgency.
5. Someone begins to impersonate you and post inappropriate content to your socials, which can be very distressing especially when you’re actively trying to resolve your compromised account.
Other Signs That Point to A Potential Hack on You Account
1. Noticing your following has increased drastically from what you remember in recent memory
2. An influx of follow requests, almost always from people you do not know or recognize.
3. As mentioned earlier, any general changes to your account that you did not make are aligned with your social media habits.
Aside from the immediate sense of urgency when you realize your personal or business social media account is becoming compromised by hackers, lets take our focus to how you can retrieve your accounts and know you are secure.
Things to Consider: Hackers can and will absolutely use buzzwords like “Your Account Has Been Compromised” “Urgent: Your *Insert Account Name and Platform Here* Has Detected Unusual Activity”, “Reset Password Now” in phishing emails to trick you into sending your login information. The first thing to check is to try to login to your media accounts yourself.
If possible, consider the following:
1. Reset your password, something complicated, something unique and do not share it with anyone.
2. Report the incident to the social media platform to investigate as needed.
3. Change all passwords to linked accounts, can never be too careful, having your privacy in a situation like that should not be taken lightly.
4. Enable Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) to add an extra layer of safety and security.
If you are unable to recover account or unable to log in, each social media platform you have for you and your business will have a link to guide you through the recovery steps. Once you have taken the desired recovery steps, you can then remove anything deemed suspicious to no longer have access to and refresh your accounts.
For a better step forward in maintaining secure access on your teams business accounts, implement a concise security policy for your social media accounts that cover as a team:
- User access and strong password policy.
-2FA or MFA to be enabled for additional security.
-Monitoring behavior on platform.
-Even being selective of who gets access to your account like filtering out friend requests is a small step long term for securing your accounts.
-Employee training on the importance of social media security to identify and monitor for any unusual activity.
A wildfire scenario we would not wish to happen to fellow business owners and our friends or family. If your business account was hacked on social media, the extensive effects are the hackers’ targeting clients with phishing messages, links containing malware, all leading to a bad reputation for the brand and compromised relationships. Furthermore, if some clients did happen to click on the malicious links that were sent out when the account was compromised, the company may face liability and further legal actions. On top of it all, compromised accounts will disrupt a business’s usual business activity that will cost them time, expenses, and delays.
Password Managers & Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
While we work with a variety of business sizes, our tips and tricks can also be applied to your everyday life as well. Password managers and multi-factor authentication (MFA) are essential tools in today’s cybersecurity landscape. They can help protect sensitive business information from unauthorized access and data breaches. Our Ekaru team plays a crucial role in supporting small and medium sized businesses by offering extensive and essential cybersecurity training and solutions, password manager and MFA implementations.
Businesses benefit from improved security, data protection, customer trust, regulatory compliance, all supporting smoother operations and growth for your business.
Always on The Side of Safety
Whether your personal or your businesses social media accounts have found themselves compromised due to hackers, it’s a reminder that cyber threats are getting more sophisticated and can show vulnerabilities your business may need to improve on. These breaches on social media can damage your brand’s reputation, expose sensitive information, and open the door to further cyber threats.
Our team here at Ekaru that assists small and medium sized businesses in the Greater Boston area, can help your team proactively secure all accounts by implementing essential practices such as strong authentication protocols, active monitoring of all accounts, and extensive cybersecurity staff training.
Taking preventative steps in advance can ensure your business is protected before a crisis hits, rather than being blindsided and forced to react after the damage is already done.
Interested in how Ekaru can help increase better cybersecurity practices for you and your team on their personal and business accounts, reach out to us to chat today at 978-692-4200 or sending us an email at info@ekaru.com. Take the steps to add security to your accounts today!