Security And Privacy Issues With Social Media - Challenges, Risks, And Solutions Essay.

The Challenges of Security and Privacy Issues in Social Media

Question:

Discuss About The Security Privacy Issues With Social Media?

Nowadays, social media has become so popular among people for communication and sharing of information among people worldwide. The social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn etc. are commonly used by people. There are several benefits of using social media for both business organizations and for other common users. The basic concept of social media is that it is combination of websites and applications that can be used by users to create and share content among others via online. Whether there are some benefits of social media but on other side, there are challenges, risks and problems are concerned with this technology. In upcoming paragraphs, we will discuss about essential points in detail.

It is an important segment of this report to discuss challenges and issues of security and privacy issues of social media.

According to analysis, I got to know that the main challenges of security of social media is to choose best strategy by developers to get high level security and privacy of information that is transferred over internet. Without an appropriate technology, it is difficult to get prevention from vulnerable attacks such as hacking, phishing, DDOS etc. (methodshop, 2017)

Another important challenge is for business enterprises those provide services to its users for social networking. People submit their information online with trust on companies and they want to proper security of their information. It is matter of believe of customers and reputation of companies. So advanced security facility is necessary to provide to customers to satisfy them.

Moreover, it is also important to be update about new tools and techniques of security and privacy tools. In most of cases, due to lack of awareness about advanced techniques to maintain security of their networks and computers, users have to encounter vulnerable network attacks. It is also a big challenge for users to be aware about availability of new kinds of software solutions and their usage.

Another important thing to discuss here in this report is regarding problems areas of social media in case of security and privacy of users (Fast Company, 2017).

1. The key problem is unauthorized access of information from online databases of social networking websites. It has commonly seen that hackers try to hack websites to get users’ personal and business information and further this information is misused by them to fulfill purpose of money. So now users need to be very careful about safety of their data (Hootsuite Social Media Management, 2017).
2. Another important issue is of spamming. To retrieve data from user’s systems, spam emails are sent to them in their inbox and that emails have some vulnerable attachments. Whenever, spam email is opened by users then virus enters into system or network and can cause damage. Here, it is necessary for users to ignore or delete these spam emails (nadikari123, 2017).

These security and privacy related issues of security and privacy of social media can be resolved by using some essential technologies. These security and privacy related technologies are listed as below (MakeUseOf, 2017):

1. SSL i.e. Secure Socket Layer is one of the important and effective techniques that can be used for protecting social networking websites that are used by people for communication and content sharing purpose. It is a very secure network layer and considered better for sending and receiving important information online.
2. Furthermore, at user’s end proper security can be maintained by using strong login credentials. These credentials are username and password and these must not be weak. This is because, hackers can easily guess easy passwords and access information in unauthorized way.
3. Encryption of database’s content is also an effective solution to get better security and privacy of data. By using this technique, data can be secured into database in secured and encrypted format that is hard to identify by cyber-attackers.

The application area of above discussed security and privacy technologies is wide enough. These technologies can be used anywhere for maintaining long term security and privacy of database, network and computer systems that are used for business and as well as for personal usage.

The Importance of Providing Advanced Security for Users

Most of the social media users have fundamental knowledge about it. But still there are some unclear areas that must be cleared to all users. The first unclear area is that how large amount of data is managed and stored by social media websites. In this case, it can be said that large databases are used for this purpose but security of these databases is also necessary. Another unclear area is that how malware enter into user’s system through social sites. In this case, it can be said that it has happened due to vulnerable ads that are attached with a particular web page and while opening that page ads enters into system and spread virus (Langheinrich & Karjoth, 2010).

According to analysis, I got to know one research question that is highly common among people that privacy is a big issue for social media or not. In answer it can be said that privacy is really important for users of social media and gradually it is becoming a problem for social networking sites. Therefore, it is essential duty of social media developers that enhance the level of security to provide secure services to users (Zheleva, Terzi & Getoor, 2012).

The main discussed issues in form are concerned with vulnerable issues of security and privacy of data. The explanation of every issue is appropriate and it is essential for users to be aware about these issues and try to use suitable security solutions. In addition to this, I would like to say that to overcome this problem of privacy and security of data, both users and developers need to do efforts. Developers of social media have to implement new strategies to control cyber-attacks like hacking, virus attacks and phishing etc. On other side, users should maintain security of their computers by using available security schemes and policies (Senthil Kumar N, Saravanakumar K & Deepa K, 2017).

From above discussion it is cleared that users of social media have so much bad influence of security and privacy issues of social media. Due to this, people are worried about their information that is stored in online databases. Hackers have several tools to deliberately access the sensitive information from databases. Not only common users but also some large business enterprises have faced security related issues. Sony, eBay, Nokia and other renowned companies are in this list (Ieeexplore.ieee.org, 2017).

The given information in forum is important and accurate about security issues of social media. But there is another issue that must be mentioned in forum is social media marketers are also affected by harmful security violation attacks. Due to this, the maintenance of external and internal resources, progress of marketing strategies and identification of social media tools have become more challenging for social media marketers. I have mentioned this issue in this report because like users and developers, social media marketers play important role in distribution of social media services and making its strategies (Econsultancy, 2017).

The overall discussion about social media and its challenges, risks and problems is essential and informative. From this discussion, the main reasons, risk factors, unknown facts and things about social media are cleared now and it is necessary to cope with critical conditions of cyber- attacks. Furthermore, it helps to enhance level of prevention by providing knowledge about latest security tools and techniques that can be used by both users and security professionals (Searchsecurity.techtarget.com, 2017).

Conclusion

To sum up, I can say that while using any new or existing technology, a user has knowledge about its risks, challenges, benefits and drawbacks. Besides this, the availability of possible solutions is also required to control major risk factors. From above discussion, users of social media will be familiar with basics concepts of social media and their outcomes. Now with advancement of social media, these issues can be increased if no solution will be found quickly.

References

Methodshop. (2017). 6 Really Scary Facts About Your Privacy on the Internet. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://www.methodshop.com/2015/03/internet-privacy-facts.shtml

MakeUseOf. (2017). 12 Social Media Facts and Statistics You Should Know in 2016.  Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/12-social-media-facts-statistics-know-2016/

Langheinrich, M., & Karjoth, G. (2010). Social networking and the risk to companies and institutions. Information Security Technical Report, 15(2), 51-56. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.istr.2010.09.001

Searchsecurity.techtarget.com. (2017). Social media security risks news, help and research - SearchSecurity. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/resources/Social-media-security-risks-and-real-time-communication-security

Fast Company. (2017). Privacy and Security Issues in Social Networking. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://www.fastcompany.com/1030397/privacy-and-security-issues-social-networking

Zheleva, E., Terzi, E., & Getoor, L. (2012). Privacy in social networks. San Rafael, Calif. (1537 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA 94901 USA): Morgan & Claypool.

Econsultancy. (2017). The four biggest challenges facing social media strategists. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://econsultancy.com/blog/67913-the-four-biggest-challenges-facing-social-media-strategists

Ieeexplore.ieee.org. (2017). Solutions to Security and Privacy Issues in Mobile Social Networking - IEEE Conference Publication. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5283078/

nadikari123. (2017). Social network privacy & security. Slideshare.net. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://www.slideshare.net/nadikari123/social-network-privacy-security

Hootsuite Social Media Management. (2017). 5 Social Media Security Risks and How to Avoid Them. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-security-for-business/

HuffPost.(2017). Social Media Privacy and Personal Security Issues. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-siciliano/social-media-privacy-and_b_245857.html

Senthil Kumar N, Saravanakumar K, & Deepa K. (2017). On Privacy and Security in Social Media – A Comprehensive Study. Retrieved 27 September 2017, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187705091600021