SOCIAL MEDIA: An Increasingly Important Security Consideration
By Cristina Cruz and Andy Jabbour
FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIT- ED STATES AND CELEBRITIES TO THE BIGGEST BRAND NAMES, CY- BERCRIMINALS AND LAW ENFORCE- MENT - EVERYONE, IT SEEMS, IS ON SOCIAL MEDIA.
According to Statista, the most recent known numbers indicate
that Facebook has over 2.19 billion monthly active users, Instagram over 1 billion, LinkedIn has over 467 million members, Twitter boasts over 336 million monthly active users, and Telegram over 100 mil- lion. Snapchat, the social media of choice among many younger us- Strava adds a million new members every 45 days. Huge numbers! Amazing potential audiences! Ample cover for criminals, extremists, and other bad actors to plan, communicate, threaten, attack and otherwise potentially harm business operations. Social media has become a great resource for intelligence ana- lysts and, in an age of digital conversations, it has become the go to “voice” for many – including security-focused individuals from analysts to senior leaders. Unfortunately, social media is also being used for nefarious reasons - to include extremist recruitment, radical- ization, propaganda, and coordination among threat actors. Social media presents both tremendous opportunities and very real risks. There is no single best way to approach social media awareness
and use. For small venues, it may be occasional scanning of key terms and locations, for robust teams it may include third-party monitoring and dedicated resources, others may work hand-in-hand with their marketing or communications teams, and others may use innovative technology and other solutions to help maintain awareness and com- municate with the public. However it is approached, the following notes some of the
ways in which venue leaders may want to consider social me- dia, and how they can use it to help security operations. Among the key questions organizations and leaders now need to consider are: What are the threats from social media that our organization faces and how vulnerable are we to such threats? What are the potential business impacts from such threats? How much expo- sure and risk is there to us individually and for our organizations?
42 Facility Manager Magazine Awareness and Community Engagement
Community engagement is very important for both private and pub- lic-sector venues for a number of reasons - from brand, venue, and product sentiment, to community sentiment towards the venue and its personnel, as well as for opportunities to engage with community lead- - itor their brands for marketing purposes. What’s being said about an upcoming event or performer, a new product or sponsor, an advertising campaign, a new feature, a newly renovated area, etc. Similarly, security leaders can see how the brand or venue is being discussed in social media settings with an eye towards potential indica- tors of security threats. Are individuals or groups complaining about an upcoming performer’s recent actions or statements that is scheduled for your venue or an event sponsor or participant that is causing some type of controversy and is there discussion of any type of response action either physical or cyber? Are issues with a new campaign being seen - ties? Has an incident caused dissatisfaction or irritation with patrons or others and are there any associated security concerns? Has something happened in the community that is causing angst and are there asso- ciated impacts to your organization (for instance look to March’s Sac- ramento shooting incident resulting in the death of Mr. Stephon Clark and the way that the Sacramento Kings expertly used social media and community engagement to respectfully address the incident and the Golden 1 Center’s security challenges; the incident and follow-on serve as examples of how an unrelated tragedy may manifest as a venue se- curity issue and of positive engagement and messaging by the Kings). With these and other situations, collaboration among marketing and security personnel, or awareness by responsible individuals at smaller security concerns, allowing leaders to consider any appropriate and de- sired security measures – from increasing physical security measures, to increased network monitoring, to communications actions, local coor- dination with hometown security partners, etc.
Physical Security Threat and Incident AwarenesS
From planned events (such as protests and rallies), to emerging inci-
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