Page 3 - The Risk Management Group - The A to Z of Safe Social Media

Produced by The Risk Management Group 2012

Early in 2012 we were asked to support the efforts of

UK financial services firm Legal & General in the

production of their

Digital Criminal 2012: Cybersafety

Report

.

This report, which can be downloaded

here

,

focused on consumer risks arising from poor social

media habits. The results of the survey were alarming:

•

91%

of the Facebook users surveyed had received

friend requests from strangers

•

51%

of those users admitted having accepted such

requests

•

56%

of users also discuss evening and holiday plans

‘

wall-to-wall’

Our own tests, using a network of fake Facebook,

Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, demonstrated that many

of our fake profiles were able to gather up to 150

friends within a few weeks. One fake profile amassed

a staggering 79 friends in under 12 hours, simply by

using a pretty picture. Many of these new ‘friends’

were willing to share personal data with our fake

personas.

The risks for business and consumers arising from poor

social media habits are very real, with fraud, identity

theft and the exposure of corporate data being only

the tip of the iceberg. The second in our series of free

A-to-Z Guides is designed to raise awareness and to

suggest commonsense security measures for social

media activities carried out by the average person in

the home and at places of work.

Introduction

ii

Mark Johnson