Cybersecurity Challenges in Social Media Erdal Ozkaya

7.3
 
Recommendations 
7.3.1
 
Users 
To begin with, users have to be careful with the sensitivity of the data they post on 
social media and the amount of information that is visible to others. Some users are victims 
of their own calamities, whereby they have posted sensitive data on social media thus 
encouraging malicious persons to exploit their “honesty.” Other than their honesty being 
exploited, posting some comments or pictures on social media might cost one his/her 
reputation and even a job. It is estimated that 70% of recruiters do background checks on 

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one’s social media account and reject a candidate based on his/her posts. Some of the data 
that users should be wary of when sharing online include the names of their banks, 
workplaces, frequently visited locations, and their homes. This makes it easy for a stalker to 
follow up on one’s every move. Stalking could be made harder if people did not reveal where 
they were at all times on social media. Unfortunately, users want others to see where they 
live, work, eat, and spend most of their time. It is safe to assume that there is always someone 
with malicious intentions actively collecting the data that one posts on his/her social media 
accounts. 
Social media platforms provide a few privacy settings that can enable one to alter 
his/her visibility online. Some platforms will allow a user to block off everyone except their 
friends from being able to view what they post. Facebook was found by several researches to 
be the platform faced by most privacy issues. That is why the platform includes 101 privacy 
settings to help users protect their account and information. It is good for users to be wary of 
strangers who try to message them asking for some favors. It is upon users to learn how to 
use these privacy settings; they have been put there for a reason. The best recommendation as 
concerns this is to make a social media account not visible to people other than friends and 
family whenever possible. Almost all social media platforms support this and it could be the 
setting that keeps stalkers, hackers, and social engineers at bay. Unfortunately, these settings 
are not designed to prevent the social media companies from collecting one’s data in the 
background. The advantage is that even if they collect one’s data, they will not follow up a 
certain person to rob them off or rob him/her when not at home. 
It is advisable for users to enable two-factor authentication into their accounts 
whenever possible. This will go a long way into stopping hackers who might get hold of 
one’s password. A two-step authentication is basically a multi-factor verification whereby 
one is authenticated into his/her account after two checks have confirmed the legitimacy of 

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his/her identity (Oder, 2008). One of the factors is obviously the password but the second 
factor could be a code or pass that is sent via SMS or email. The second layer of 
authentication makes it harder for a hacker or someone who has stolen credentials from 
getting through the login process. They might have the correct username and password but 
since they do not have the second code, they cannot log into an account. This has stopped 
many hacking attempts, fraud, data theft, and identity theft. Most social media accounts have 
support for this multiple factor authentication, and it is just a matter of one activating it. 
Users should be wary of third party applications within and out of social media 
platforms. These apps are reportedly able to access one’s list of friends, entire account 
information of users, posts, and even private messages. These third-party applications are 
used to do various functionalities based on the platform. For Twitter, they are used to easily 
unfollow people who do not follow back and some claim to help users get more followers. In 
Facebook, they are used to send birthday wishes, record people that look at one’s profile, and 
some have some useless functionalities. When one connects to them, it has been found out 
that they are given more than necessary access to one’s data. Facebook is said to give them 
almost an entire access to one’s account. Compared to what they do, it is not worth it to let 
them access this kind of data. They could be masquerading as apps to help one catch by 
surprise stalkers, but in the background, they could be exporting his/her messages and posts 
to their websites. This is information that could be used for malicious purposes. Social media 
platforms do come with settings for one to remove these apps. Users are strongly advised to 
remove them so as to protect their accounts.
Lastly, it never hurts for users to change their passwords regularly. Changing 
passwords is effective at ensuring that, even if one’s password is stolen, the malicious person 
will have a small window of opportunity to use it. It is surprisingly easy to steal passwords, 
especially when users are willing “free” premium software. Free software, especially when 

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downloaded from torrent sites, comes with many malicious programs and codes. This is 
normally the cost of using the illegally downloaded software. They come full of keystroke 
loggers, ransomware, and some malware used to steal passwords saved on browsers. This is 
yet another important point; users should not save their passwords on their browsers. It is 
better to use a password manager software. There are many tools that can be used to copy all 
the saved passwords in a computer. One of the easiest tools runs from a USB flash disk, and 
all a malicious person needs to do is plug it into the victim’s computer. Users should also 
never reuse the same passwords for each of social media platforms. This makes it hard for a 
malicious person that has been able to hack into one account to be able to hack another. 
Hackers know that users are lazy, and they will, therefore, tend to repeat the same passwords 
for all the social media platforms they use. Easy-to-guess passwords or information that can 
easily be found out such as birthday dates should also never be used.