Cybersecurity Challenges in Social Media Erdal Ozkaya

Abstract 
Recent actions by social media platforms have sparked a new debate on the privacy of users. 
There have been reports of user data being sold to third parties and personal data being 
accessed for advertising purposes with or without their consent. A new wave of security 
threats is also coming up and is breeding on social media platforms. Social engineering has 
grown to be a formidable security threat due to the amounts of data that users are posting on 
social media platforms. Hackers do not need to search deeply for data that they can use in 
order to attack users. Attackers lurking on social media platforms or ganging up with the 
revenue-focused social media platforms have made it hard for social media users to continue 
enjoying these platforms free of worries.
In response to this, this research has studied the ways in which social media platforms are 
inherently putting users in the way of security and privacy threats. It has hypothesized that 
social media platforms are the culprits of increasing security and privacy threats that users are 
facing and research has been conducted to prove the same. In the results, it has been observed 
that users are increasingly getting wary of their security online due to social media platforms. 
From secondary data sources, it has also been found that there are many social media users 
who are exposed to security and privacy risks but are unaware. Based on the findings of the 
primary and secondary data, the research has formulated some recommendations that it hopes 
will reduce the security and privacy issues that users are facing on social media. The 
recommendations are aimed at making users more secure, encouraging government 
participation in regulating social media platforms, and urging social media platforms to give 
users more control over their privacy. 

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