Using social media safely for your business is possible. We’ve seen a few pieces of advice previously that will help you do this. Here are some few final tips on this topic that will help you make the most of social networking sites all the while keeping your business safe from hacking and other security breaches.

• Beware of compromised accounts

Just because your account is safe and you follow good security practices, doesn’t mean that everyone else in your contacts necessarily does the same thing, however. Be careful, as your clients, business partners, as well as personal friends accounts could be compromised. While most hacked accounts are used simply for posting spam, there are some other uses that hackers make of them. Beware of any strange links given to you by your contacts, especially if you don’t expect to be sent any links by that person. Very often, these would go to a phishing site, or a site that has been compromised by malware. Be careful about friends claiming that they need to borrow money or that they urgently need you to make a purchase for them on an e-commerce site. These are common scams that target social media users as well. If you’re unsure if the person that you’re talking to is really your contact, then get in touch with them in another way, such as by email, IM, text message or phone call.

• Avoid discussing sensitive information on social networking sites

Don’t publicly post information that should be kept in private messages. For example, don’t post on your suppliers Facebook wall that you’ll be making an order for such and such product. This just gives information about your business to competitors. If one of your clients or partners wants to talk about something related specifically to business between you and them, then it’s better to do this in a more private environment such as by phone or email. Remember, there is always the potential that someone is impersonating a contact that you know on social networking sites, or that one of your contacts accounts has been compromised.

• Keep up with developments in the security and social networking world

Read technology websites such as ZD Net, etc. They’re not just for computer geeks, but contain some very useful information about the latest technologies, in terms of online services, hardware as well as software solutions. You may learn more about a product that you’re currently using, or that you may find useful to get. But the most important reason why you need to keep up with technology news is that information about the latest security threats is reported a lot more quickly and thoroughly on these sites than on “general purpose” media websites. That way, if there’s a security threat such as a loop hole in site security that was found by hackers, or a piece of malware like a worm or trojan that is circulating through social networking sites, you will be the first to know about it and can find out ways to protect yourself from that security threat.

Social media use is growing among businesses everywhere. This is no surprise given the popularity of social media all over the world. However, there are some security issues that need to be taken under consideration if your business wants to use social media sites such as Facebook and Google+ in order to spread its message and connect with customers or potential customers.

Previously, the number one method of attack for cyber criminals that targeted small and medium businesses was through email. Phishing messages that were disguised as messages from legitimate companies were used to either steal information or get the unsuspecting user to install malware on their computer. While this form of cyber attack is still relatively common, hackers have instead started focusing their attention to social media sites as a channel of attack. There are already many reported instances of security breaches caused by social media use in business. The main question here would be how to use social media safely and protect yourself against such attacks. There are some good practices which you can implement across your company that will reduce the likelihood that you will fall victim to such an attack.

• Use a good password for your social media accounts

This may seem obvious, however you would be surprised how many users, even serious business users have passwords that could easily be guessed. Don’t use anything that one could easily figure out and try to use a combination of letters and numbers. Also, don’t use the same password for all of your social media accounts and don’t re use the same password that you’ve used on another website. While social networking sites have very good security and are highly unlikely to get their databases compromised (though they’re not immune to that), many other websites that require you to register and select a user name and password run on simple scripts that aren’t too hard to compromise. There’s a high chance that if the data is compromised and shared online, hackers everywhere will first try the user name (or email) and password combinations on popular sites like Facebook to see if they could break into any accounts.

• Keep the email address used for social media secure

Even if you have a good password, this will be quite worthless if the email address associated with your social media accounts is compromised. All a hacker would have to do is to click on the “Forgot my password” link and then have a new password sent to that email that they’ve just broken into. So use common sense and make sure that your email stays safe as well. Use a separate email address for your social media activities rather than using a “general” email address for everything related to your business. This will reduce potential risks should your email be compromised for some reason. Of course, your email password should be a good one as well, just like the password for your social networking accounts.

WordPress blogs are becoming more and more popular as the number one content management system for webmasters due to its ease of use and how well they are optimised for search engines.

However wordpress is now becoming the number one threat for hackers to hack into due to the amount of vulnerabilities there are with wordpress and with all the plugins that are used.

The default installation of wordpress is very vulnerable as hackers will find it very easy to attack your website.  They are very popular for a phishing attack which can see your blog being de indexed from search engines which will have a dramatic effect on your blogs rankings, as it will be removed from search engines listings.

Click Here To Find Out How You Can Secure Your Blog