Social media accounts help shape a brand’s identity and reputation. These public forums interact directly with customers as they are a hub for communication, sharing content and answering questions. However, despite the high role of these accounts, many organizations do not pay attention to the security of social media accounts. Many lack safeguards to prevent unauthorized access, a situation that no organization wants, as it can quickly lead to reputational damage and financial loss.
With such high exposure, the need to have a deep understanding of social media risks, as well as how to protect an organization’s social media account, is more important than ever. This article takes a detailed look at social media accounts and describes how social media can be abused and how to protect yourself.
Understanding the layers of access to social networks
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn typically have two levels of access.
- Public page: where brands post content and interact with users.
- Advertising account: Used to run targeted advertising campaigns and generate leads, often linked to payment methods.
These two layers are interconnected but work independently. Each page has its own access roles, permissions, and configuration options. Permissions are often granted to external agencies that handle various aspects of social media. Non-human identities, such as social media management platforms, can be hosted on behalf of companies, executives, and senior employees. Monitoring both of these layers is important, as each allows users to post on behalf of the brand.
Three risks of hacking social networks
Social media platforms are typically managed by a variety of internal and external stakeholders. This type of distributed access allows “keys” to potentially fall into the wrong hands if mismanaged. Unauthorized users can then edit, post or comment on behalf of the brand without permission – which of course can cause reputational damage and other types of damage.
Also, poor social media account management can lead to finger-pointing when things go wrong. Lack of visibility into who is doing what exposes organizations to operational inefficiencies and security threats.
Third, those who gain access to advertising accounts may mismanage or misappropriate resources. With ad accounts connected to an approved payment mechanism, a threat actor can run expensive ad campaigns promoting a different agenda. Ad account users and permissions need to be set up correctly, otherwise it can drain your entire marketing budget and damage your reputation.
Mitigating Social Media Risk with SSPM
Managing your SaaS security posture (SSPM) tools have not traditionally been used to protect social media accounts, but the leading SSPM platforms have the capabilities — and should be used to do just that. These integrations provide centralized visibility so social media and security managers can see users, their access levels, and permissions. This will make for a much stronger governance model to better protect the social ecosystem.
SSPM can also run security checks to detect high-risk configurations. This ensures that accounts have spending limits and provides visibility into which internal and external users can access payment mechanisms within the platform.
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) capabilities can also detect unusual activity in such accounts, allowing for real-time response to imminent threats.
Get Social Security: Use Cases
Monitoring social media accounts allows companies to protect themselves in the following use cases.
- Location and Interaction Control: Ensure that only authorized users can post, comment and participate on behalf of the brand
- Monitoring agencies and external staff: Set boundaries and gain transparency into the behavior of external users
- Marketing Resource Management: Check spending limits and control user access to reduce the risk of unauthorized spending
- Audit account activity: Identify and stop unusual or risky behavior
Secure your social media presence with SSPM
The digital landscape is constantly changing, and with it the nature of threats. Social media now plays a critical role in an organization’s brand and reputation, making it imperative to secure these accounts as part of a comprehensive SaaS security strategy. SSPM’s social media integration offers the visibility, control and protection needed to keep these core assets safe.
Learn how to secure your social accounts now
