Social Media: A Nightmare For Enterprise IT Security?

Written by Chris Poulin

Chris Poulin: Living social.

Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn, Skype … the list of social networking sites goes on and on, and a majority of the one billion people that use them consistently access them while at work. This unchecked flow of data is a new source of sensitive information and creates security loopholes for serious cyber attacks. From a technology standpoint, enforcing a policy around social networking traffic is difficult, but it must be done.

Anyone who has been asked by a friend or family member to fix a slow PC understands the average home user will happily click any link, accept any friend invitation, and even install software from just about any Web site. You can draw a distinction between personal and professional social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, which attract different types of users for different reasons, but the problem is that most of us aren’t good at separating our personal and professional lives. Chances are we use the same password for our Google Buzz account that we use for the corporate Active Directory login and for Salesforce.com.

Hackers know that e-mail protection is mature at this point and it’s easier to entice users to click on links in social networking sites than it is to evade e-mail content filters. These drive-by download attacks can infect personal and business computers alike with all types of malware. Viruses, the perennial favorite, are now somewhat passé, and are being replaced with custom, targeted malware that is much more dangerous and amounts to what is being called advanced persistent threats.

RSA reported that the recent compromise of their systems involved the attackers using social media sites to find details of key company employees and deliver malware in the form of an Adobe Flash exploit embedded in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to the target computers via spear phishing. The same social networking sites that were used to gather information about the target individuals could have easily been the contact vector.

IT managers face two major challenges when it comes to social media: keep networks safe from hackers that have turned to social networking sites utilized by partners, outsourcers and employees, and keep productivity up, which can be hindered due to the ‘always-connected’ mentality of employees that want to be constantly connected to both their work and social networks.

In general, it is fine to allow employees to access these sites with appropriate security awareness training and a clear acceptable use policy. Conversely, companies should be monitoring employee usage of social media/networking sites – for personal and professional use – in order to ensure compliance with internal policy and reduce the risk of fraud. It is critical to have the ability to monitor the usage of social media from within the network, including the ability to identify which users are accessing which social media services, determine the volume and pattern of usage, and inspect and alert on the content being transmitted to those services.

Each party holds partial responsibility when it comes to social media in the workplace: employees have a responsibility to be discreet whether at the office, at home, or on a vacation in the Bahamas, while employers have a responsibility to clearly define policy, and to be open and set manageable expectations with senior management.

Chris Poulin is the Chief Security Officer for Q1 Labs, a leading provider of security intelligence solutions.

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How Will Google Affect SEO?

By now you’ve probably heard about Google+, the latest social networking craze and most recent effort by Google to take on Facebook and Twitter. But did you know that it could affect how your business’s website gets found on Google’s search engine?

In addition to building a social networking powerhouse, Google’s aim with its “+1″ button — the equivalent of Facebook’s “Like” button — is to determine the social value of websites, or, in other words, they want consumers to add personalized recommendations to Web content and business sites. At present, it actually looks like Google may just pull it off. Since its June 28 release, more than 20 million people have already jumped onboard Google+. With such an unbelievable early adoption rate, many internet marketing professionals are beginning to wonder if those “+1″s will also start affecting how businesses use search-engine optimization, or SEO.

Google+ combines many popular features of Facebook and Twitter into a centralized social hub. There’s a group video chat feature called “Hangouts,” and a user-defined topical news feed (like Twitter’s hashtag) called “Sparks.” But maybe the most unique feature — and SEO-relevant — is “Google Circles,” which gives users the ability to share content with specified groups, or “circles” of people. As users build these circles, they’ll be able to see the sites that members of their circles have +1′d in Google’s search engine results pages, or SERPs.

While “+1″s are currently appearing in the search pages for users that are logged in to their Google accounts, it’s too early to say exactly how “+1″s will affect users who aren’t logged in. Looking at how Facebook and Twitter “Likes” and “retweets” currently affect where a site appears within search pages, one has to assume these +1′s will be as influential, if not more.

As search engines evolve to make searching more social, the main value added of “Likes” and “tweets” showing in SERPs is the concept of something I like to call, “trusted endorsements.” If someone searches for a product or service, there’s a good chance that customer reviews and recommendations will play some role in their decision making process. When looking at these reviews, users trust the opinions of strangers. They assume that these reviews are honest, but there’s always a hint of lingering skepticism.

Now imagine the same user is searching for the same product or service, but instead of having to rely on the opinions of strangers, they see recommendations from friends, co-workers or family members. Just like in real life, the opinions of people in their “circles” influence the decisions they make. That’s the potential Google+ holds.

So how do you optimize for recommendations?

Google has built upon some of the best features of existing social media sites in an attempt to make search less about computer algorithms and more about real people. Google+ and the +1 button are empowering users to influence other peoples’ online activity.

This isn’t SEO in the traditional sense, optimizing for these trusted endorsements is an entirely new strategy altogether. Now more than ever, marketers must focus on providing the best customer experience possible, and encourage +1 recommendations everywhere they can.

Mike Spadier is the online marketing manager for InMotion Hosting, a Los Angeles based Web hosting provider specializing in small- and medium-sized businesses.

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