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Yes, Your Employees Are Using Facebook at Work. Here is What You Need to Do Today. 

If your employees are anything like 77% of all U.S. employees, they have access to and use social media during their work hours. In fact, 37% of them spend anywhere between 15 minutes and 1 hour scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or watching Youtube videos. If you are wondering whether that costs your business money, it sure does. Losing an hour of productive work every day does have an impact, especially considering the distracting nature of social media by design. Researchers agree that even brief distractions (“Just check if there is anything new on my feed real quick”) can reduce productivity by up to 40%. 

But monetary and productivity costs are not the only reason to reevaluate your company’s social media policy—security concerns are quickly taking the lead. Back in 2011, TechCrunch reported that over 600,000 Facebook accounts were being compromised every day. More recently, in September 2018, private information of nearly 50 Million Facebook users was exposed during a cyberattack. And while this may seem marginally related to your business, a compromised Facebook account on a company computer can be a gateway to the sensitive information stored there.     

Moreover, if your employee is logged into Facebook from their work computer and uses the convenient Login with Facebook button to access other sites, they make it a breeze for any hacker to grab their personal information, including social security numbers, emails, and payment information from those sites. And if that employee uses a corporate credit card or email on those sites, that information can be easily compromised as well. 

So, how do you secure your data while ensuring your employees are using social media responsibly? Do these three things today. 

Establish Social Media and Password Policies

Those can be a part of your Employee Handbook, but make sure that your employees can easily review them at any time online (quarterly reminders also don’t hurt). Most employees won’t be thrilled if you ban social media entirely, and some of them may need it for work to connect with leads or run your marketing. We all need to take a quick break from time to time and look at some kittens. The goal of social media policy is to encourage responsible social media use and to educate employees on the best practices for security and productivity, backed up by science. 

As for the password policy, it is obligatory for any business. Make sure to reference our free Security Awareness Training for the dos and don’ts of secure passwords—and speak with your 3nom expert today to develop policies that work for your business.  

Enable Two-Factor Authentication

Two-Factor Authentication gives your data an extra layer of protection in case someone does get access to your employee’s accounts. The standard two-factor authentication will require a unique access code to be set to a specific phone number connected to the account for access—or will require to input a code from a list. Setting up two-factor authentication is a good idea for personal accounts as well, but is highly recommended for all business accounts. 

Use Password Manager

Some of the worst things you can do for your data security are using the same password for all your accounts, storing your passwords in a browser (such as Chrome or Safari), and using Facebook or Google to log into third-party sites. All these practices are ubiquitous and responsible for all too many hacked emails and credit cards. While convenience certainly matters, it is a good idea for a business to emphasize security and educate employees on the best practices of safe password management. Passwords Managers like LastPass and 1Password act as vaults with two-step authentication built right into them: even if someone hacks their way into the vault, your passwords are still protected by a Master Password that is known only to you and is not stored anywhere online. 

Are you looking for more ways to secure your company’s data? Make sure to check out 3nom’s free Security Awareness Training! (No technical background required. Recommended for employees of all levels.)