Into The Breach

Employees’ social media profiles can put company data at risk

- Angie Yeoh

Even for companies that have robust IT security solutions in place, protecting networks and data is growing increasingly complex as security gaps emerge where they’re least expected. With the emphasis on technology to protect data assets from threats from the outside, internal threats – such as a company’s employees – are often overlooked.

“Employees, their social media profiles and the devices they use to access a company’s network and resources provide a plethora of gateways into the infrastructure for cybercriminals. Organisations should take care to not focus purely on traditional defences. Attackers will quickly change their strategy from trying to bypass a strong perimeter defence to attacking the human element,” says Charl Ueckermann, CEO at AVeS Cyber Security.

The company recently conducted a vulnerability assessment as well as internal and external penetration tests for a large mining company. The company has 5,500 users on its system, with 1,281 of them using company-associated LinkedIn profiles. This equates to 23% of employees on LinkedIn. The company’s IT security status appeared to be excellent, with a few vulnerabilities detected, until a simulated social engineering attack was suggested.