Information security challenges in social media interactions: strategies to normalize practices across physical and virtual worlds

With the onset of new communication models, social communication took a new shape and these interactions embraced the World Wide Web. These social media interactions are quite analogous to the real world communications, and have numerous derived benefits. Humongous amount of information is generated and exchanged through social media interactions. In most instances, this information exchange does not pass through authorizations, approvals and is thus uncontrolled. This poses major concerns regarding information security & privacy. For the organization, even though there are perceived business benefits from engaging in social media, un-controlled information exchange stands as a major concern. This paper details the strategies that can be employed so as to mitigate risks of social media to the organization. It discusses the information security & privacy risks and issues underlying the social media interactions. Further, the paper suggests strategies that can minimize the risks from these interactions. The paper concludes with a discussion on the nuances and suggests future work in this arena.