Cyber Security Challenges in Social Media

Recent actions by social media platforms have sparked a new debate on the privacy of users. There have been reports of user data being sold to third parties and personal data being accessed for advertising purposes with or without their consent. A new wave of security threats is also coming up and is breeding on social media platforms. Social engineering has grown to be a formidable security threat due to the amounts of data that users are posting on social media platforms. Hackers do not need to search deeply for data that they can use in order to attack users. Attackers lurking on social media platforms or ganging up with the revenue-focused social media platforms have made it hard for social media users to continue enjoying these platforms free of worries.
In response to this, this research has studied the ways in which social media platforms are inherently putting users in the way of security and privacy threats. It has hypothesized that social media platforms are the culprits of increasing security and privacy threats that users are facing and research has been conducted to prove the same. In the results, it has been observed that users are increasingly getting wary of their security online due to social media platforms. From secondary data sources, it has also been found that there are many social media users who are exposed to security and privacy risks but are unaware. Based on the findings of the primary and secondary data, the research has formulated some recommendations that it hopes will reduce the security and privacy issues that users are facing on social media. The recommendations are aimed at making users more secure, encouraging government participation in regulating social media platforms, and urging social media platforms to give users more control over their privacy.