Social Media Opens a New Front in the Cyber Security War

The rise of social media opens an entirely new front on the war against cyber crime.  In the May 26 post of the “Zero Day” blog on ZDNet by Ryan Naraine and Dancho Danchev, there is a detailed account of a vulnerability in the Twitter API that is an open door for hacking. Besides being sound analysis of this specific problem, the article serves as a great example of how the continued rise of social media will affect IT security going forward.

Don’t underestimate the impact social media and the generation raised on such communication will have on the workforce and therefore IT security.  I have heard stories that many of today’s college graduates have to be taught how to use email, because the social media tools are so ingrained in their daily existence and therefore replaced what those of us in the previous generations find to be an essential tool.  And even old dogs learn new tricks as I have found myself drawn into the world of social media as part of my responsibilities.   

Furthermore, the speed in which social media trends rise and fall and the number of opportunistic startups that pop up overnight to write applications to ride the next hot trend raise concerns on the security rigor applied to writing these applications.  One only has to look at the many apps that popped up around Twitter as an example.  It is not a reach to be worried about the level of attention being paid toward securing these applications for enterprise consumption.

While many of the attack vectors used against social media will be familiar, undoubtedly many will not, and such attacks will put additional strain on aging defensive technologies and already thinly stretched IT staffs.  If your company or government agency is not thinking about the impact of social media to security, you should be. And you should not take for granted that your existing endpoint security software is sufficient to protect your IT assets from this next generation of threats and the associated malware.