The dark side of social networking sites:Understanding phishing risks

Abstract

LinkedIn, with over 1.5 million Groups, has become a popular place for business employees to create private groups to exchange information and communicate. Recent research on social networking sites (SNSs) has widely explored the phenomenon and its positive effects on firms. However, social networking's negative effects on information security were not adequately addressed. Supported by the credibility, persuasion and motivation theories, we conducted 1) a field experiment, demonstrating how sensitive organizational data can be exploited, followed by 2) a qualitative study of employees engaged in SNSs activities; and 3) interviews with Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs). Our research has resulted in four main findings: 1) employees are easily deceived and susceptible to victimization on SNSs where contextual elements provide psychological triggers to attackers; 2) organizations lack mechanisms to control SNS online security threats, 3) companies need to strengthen their information security policies related to SNSs, where stronger employee identification and authentication is needed, and 4) SNSs have become important security holes where, with the use of social engineering techniques, malicious attacks are easily facilitated.

Role of Social Networks in E-government: Risks and Security Threats

“…The concept of confidentiality is becoming increasingly incomprehensible and in general, the lack of clear media confidentiality in ICT field and social media accelerates this process. While the problem of confidentiality seems to be less important for social media users, empirical evidence suggests that such concerns are rising when users communicate directly with government agencies (Facebook 1,2 , 2018; Rathore et al, 2017;Silic & Back, 2016). As a result, citizens' acceptance of the use of the social media by the governments requires legitimacy.…”

“…can directly affect the user. (CareerBuilder; Facebook 1.2 , Dreßing et al, 2014;Khan, Swar, & Lee, 2014;Rathore et al, 2017;Silic & Back, 2016). Note that regardless of how convenient and effective the e-government system is, if it does not provide reliable protection of confidential information it will always face with the resistance of the citizens, and in this case it is very difficult to recover lost trust.…”

“…When this situation becomes massive, more serious problems occur. There are many potential threats to users such as technical vulnerabilities, viruses, Trojan horse, phishing and other malicious software, and can be used to intercept the user's confidential information (Raggo, 2016;Silic & Back, 2016). Phishing attack is one of the most widespread attacks by cybercriminals according to experts, and the main target is Internet payments, Internet banking, online games, Internet stocks, Web 2.0 technology used sites and so on (Raggo, 2016;Rathore et al, 2017;Silic & Back, 2016).…”

Defining Social Engineering in Cybersecurity

“…Gragg [59] considered that ''in general, social engineering is the process of deceiving people into giving confidential, private or privileged information or access to a hacker.'' Social engineering refers that deceiving or tricking people to help attackers reach their goals [60], [61], and there is not a lot of difference between the techniques used for social engineering and the techniques used to carry out a traditional fraud [47], [59]. These people who conduct the process were called confidence men and con artists in past and social engineers today [9].…”

Analisis Ancaman Phishing Dalam Layanan Online Banking

“…Resiko tersebut berupa ancaman phishing dan pencurian identitas pribadi pengguna (Silic & Back, 2016). Sebelumnya telah dijelaskan mengenai faktor-faktor penyebab phishing diantaranya akibat pengetahuan pengguna yang minim, kebiasaan pengguna, psikologis pengguna dan keterbukaan privasi social networking services pengguna.…”