In an article titled Social Media Impact, published by the ISSA Journal and written by the coauthor of this book, Yuri Diogenes, many cases were examined where social media was the main tool for the social engineering attack. The security program must be in line with HR and legal requirements regarding how the company should handle social media posts, and also give guidelines to employees on how they should handle their own social media presence.
One of the tricky questions while defining a set of guidelines to employees on how to use social media is the definition of appropriate business behavior. Disciplinary action against employees that crosses this boundary should be very clear. In October 2017, right after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, the CBS vice president made a comment implying that "Vegas victims didn't deserve sympathy because country music fans are often Republicans." The result of this online comment was simple: She was fired for violating the company's standards of conduct. While it was important for CBS to apologize rapidly for her behavior and show policy enforcement by firing the employee, the company was still hurt by this person's comments.
With the political tensions in the world and the freedom that social media gives to individuals to externalize their thoughts, situations like this are arising every single day. In August 2017, a Florida professor was fired for tweeting that Texas deserved Hurricane Harvey after voting for Trump. This is another example of an employee using his personal Twitter account to rant online and reaping bad consequences. Often, companies base their decision for firing an employee who misbehaved online on their code of conduct. For example, if you read the Outside Communications section in the Google Code of Conduct, you will see how Google makes recommendations regarding public disclosure of information.
Another important guideline to include is how to deal with defamatory posts, as well as pornographic posts, proprietary issues, harassment, or posts that can create a hostile work environment. These are imperative for most social media guidelines, and it shows that the employer is being diligent in promoting a wealth social environment within the company.