The alarm has been sounded. George Soros, in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, commented,

As Facebook and Google have grown into ever more powerful monopolies, they have become obstacles to innovation and they have caused a variety of problems of which we are only now beginning to become aware…This is particularly nefarious because social media companies influence how people think and behave without them even being aware of it. This has far-reaching adverse consequences on the functioning of democracy, particularly on the integrity of elections.

Cybersecurity is non-existent. Even if you are not aware of it, your corporate firewalls have been penetrated – potentially multiple times – and/or for weeks at a time. In most cases, access to your secure data is achieved through human behaviour – poor password management, employees allowing someone to follow them through a door that requires card access, etc.

Personal privacy has been surrendered, often voluntarily through our membership in loyalty programs and active use of social media. Most of us leave a highly descriptive trail of breadcrumbs – depicting where we shop, dine, travel, where and on what we spend our money, whom we communicate with personally and professionally and more. Few of us want to forego the frequent flier benefits, the convenience of easy communication with work and friends from anywhere on the planet and the convenience of Amazon and Google.

A heat map published on the internet to share popular running locations may have inadvertently provided locations and activities of US military bases. The Strava app is popular with runners and tracks their locations and fitness practices.

As this escalates as both a business issue and a societal issue, I am often advising corporate directors on this problem. Boards and senior leaders recognize that responsibility for addressing this cannot reside solely with your CIO or IT department. And as we are seeing with Facebook and Google, consumers and your customers may be expecting you to demonstrate leadership on this issue, if they are not already. It has become incumbent on all organizations to have a position on the use of social media for their organization and a fulsome understanding and plans for responding to cybersecurity breaches.

If you would like to further explore your level of risk and what you can to do mitigate it, please contact me.

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© 2018 Lorraine A. Moore. All rights reserved. Permission granted to excerpt or reprint with attribution.