Securely Yours: Social Networks, Security and You
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As National Security and Privacy lead for Microsoft Canada, even I’m not immune to the lure of popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Windows Live Spaces. These tools present great new ways to communicate with personal friends and family – but also help to build connections and contact within the IT community.
With this in mind, here are a few IT security tips for social networks:
| • | Be careful about installing extras on your site. Many social networking sites allow you to download third-party applications that let you do more with your personal page. Criminals sometimes use these applications to steal your personal information. To download and use third-party applications safely, take the same safety precautions that you take with any other program or file you download from the Web. For more information, see Before you download files, help protect your computer. |
| • | Choose your social network carefully. Evaluate the site that you plan to use and make sure you understand the privacy policy. Find out if the site monitors content that people post. You will be providing personal information to this Web site, so use the same criteria that you would to select a site where you enter your credit card. |
| • | Think twice before you use social networking sites at work. Workers need to understand that everything put on a social networking site is permanent. Even if you can delete your account, anyone on the Internet can easily print photos or text or save images and videos to a computer. For more information, see Be careful with social networking sites, especially at work. |
As the popularity of these social sites grows, so do the risks of using them. IT managers should, therefore, look to educate staff about social networking sites. Hackers, spammers, virus writers, identity thieves, and other criminals are following the traffic – making the need to effectively secure the network a mission-critical one.
Have questions or comments relating to Microsoft and IT security? You can reach me at cdnsec@microsoft.com
Securely yours,
Mohammad Akif
Security Tip of the Month: How to recognize phishing e-mails or links. A few clues can help you spot fraudulent e-mail messages or links within them.
To remain updated about the threat landscape and prevention best practices, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/canada/protect.
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