Social media today is a powerful tool for businesses. It also poses a real danger. Social media could be a conduit for viruses. Employees could accidentally reveal customer or proprietary information on social media. This could leave your company liable for damages even if all the data was stored remotely in the cloud. There are few ways to mitigate the risks of using social media.
Start With Policies and Training
You need to start by developing sound and clear policies regarding social media use in the workplace. You might even want to restrict all personal social media use and choose just one or two people who can access the business accounts. You then need to formally train each employee to ensure that the policy is understood by everyone.
Use Settings and Hardware to Limit Access
Use the settings within the network, at individual workstations and on hardware to limit access to social media. You can use those settings to reinforce your general workplace policies. You specifically want to disallow downloading files from social media and the ability to connect external thumb drives to a common workstation. This will prevent both accidental and intentional security breaches.
Schedule Regular Security Audits
Make certain to schedule regular security audits of your entire information technology infrastructure. You want to check that no one is accessing social media without permission or downloading files. An audit is important because it will show whether there are security gaps some employees are exploiting that could put your company at risk.
Get Cyber Liability Coverage
Your business needs to have cyber liability coverage through your insurer. This type of policy covers a very wide range of situations dealing with online data. It can make a real difference to your company if a security breach does occur through social media. The policy will help to cover a variety of costs if you are found liable.
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