Image credit: Connie Ma
Social media makes it easy to find old friends. It also makes committing fraud incredibly easy.
Cyber security consultant RSA calls social media fraud a global epidemic. Its investigators have uncovered a glut of fraud groups that sell and share stolen credit card data. They also produce malware and hacking tutorials. RSA calls the scourge “a new cybercrime reality operating in plain sight.” Pervasive social media fraud poses numerous threats to brands.
“Social media is the fraudsters’ playground—an unregulated, highly visible, easily exploitable platform that connects with billions of people and serves a host of purposes in a hacker’s repertoire,” states cyber security expert James Foster, founder and CEO of ZeroFOX. “As long as social media exists, fraud will persist as a problem. It’s time for organizations to take the threat of social media very, very seriously.”
Many Different Threats to Brands
Among the threats to brands include account takeovers, brand impersonations, promotion scams, malicious advertising, counterfeit sales, trademark violations, phishing and hashtag hijacking. For instance, an impostor can pose as a corporate CEO and rattle off racist and incendiary comments.
Attacks can damage corporate reputation and inflict significant financial damage, Forrester analyst Nick Hayes writes in Venture Beat. They can cause huge spikes in customer service volume, and force companies to compensate angry customers and offer public apologies.
Up to 2 percent of Facebook’s monthly average users, or more than 31 million, are fake accounts. About 5 percent of Twitter accounts are likely phony, and an estimated 8% of Instagram accounts are fake, says Hayes. Organizations cannot rely on social media networks for protection. The networks have done little to spot bogus accounts and are often slow to respond to requests to remove fraudulent accounts. Companies must do the monitoring to protect themselves, their brands and their executives.
Protect Your Brand with These Steps
Hayes recommends organizations take these steps to protect themselves.
Continuously monitor social media for threats. It’s essential to detect a threat before anyone else. If you learn of a problem from a reporter or a customer, it’s already too late. Target learned that lesson the hard way. A man used a fake Target account on Facebook to antagonize customers for 16 hours before the fake customer service account was finally noticed and taken down. Proactively monitor social media for a jump in negative customer sentiment and any threats that could evolve into crises. Experts also advise companies to monitor competitors and keywords describing their industry niche to better understand market sentiment. A comprehensive and fully-integrated news and social media monitoring service that delivers reports in near-real time is the best defense against social media fraud.
Understand take-down procedures. Become familiar with networks’ procedures for eliminating fake accounts and find who to contact before a crisis emerges. Better yet, develop relationships with key employees at networks to expedite the process. For large brands with substantial advertising budgets, dedicated account reps can prove extremely useful.
Get to know security experts. Seek the aid of security and risk experts at your organization. Those experts are already well-versed in tools and techniques to identify, mitigate and prevent cyber-risk. However, they may feel that reputational risks to the brand fall outside their responsibilities.
Bottom Line: Fraudulent accounts on social media networks are used to attack corporations and other organizations. PR teams must lead in protecting their companies from the global epidemic of social media fraud with comprehensive and timely media monitoring and by working together with the organization’s security experts.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
