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Online marketing and account flipping is a fairly innocuous use of a botnet. The bigger risk is the
spread of malicious links. With a botnet in place and a foundation of unmonitored posts, a
hacker has created a strong foundation from which to launch a phishing or malware distribution
campaign. Hackers will build a fake landing page and share the link via the botnet. This type of
phishing scheme often mimics a commonly used support or customer service hashtag for an
enterprise, thus targeting the company’s customers. Malware distributed on social, which comes
in a host of different shapes and sizes, can compromise an organization’s network, install
malicious applications or steal sensitive data.

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) culture magnifies social media security risks. If any device
infected from a social account accesses the organization’s network, malware can steal
information from anywhere in the enterprise. Social media is the fastest growing threat vector on
the internet – expect it to take the front seat of cyber security conversations in the coming years.

The illegal use of social media not only makes the cyber criminal’s job easier, but makes the
security professional’s job much harder. Bots are difficult to detect and bypass traditional
security measures. Other cyber attacks on social media are even more difficult to detect, such
as social engineering, impersonations, and fraud. “Soft hacks” are rampant on social, yet are
some of the most dangerous. Security solutions must adapt to alert on soft indicators of
compromise in order to combat this growing threat vector.

As social media continues to grow, cyber security must grow with it.

About the Author

Evan Blair is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at ZeroFOX.
Evan is responsible for driving the corporate vision through execution-
focused initiatives as well as business development and marketing. He was
integral in securing the companies $11M Series A investment, winning the
SINET 16 Innovator award and serving as security thought leader, having
spoken at industry conferences in Las Vegas, Washington DC, New York,
Baltimore and San Francisco. Prior to that, Evan was a member of the
Accuvant Leadership Team where he led the multi-million dollar Partner Solutions practice. At
the time of his departure, Accuvant was the 2nd largest privately held cyber security solutions
provider, had recognized over $1 billion in revenue since inception, and had capabilities with
over 175 global partners. In 2008, Evan joined Foster at Baltimore-based cyber start-up
Ciphent, where he was responsible for executing the marketing and sales strategy for the
organization. Charged with the ultimate goals of increasing sales, profitability, and revenue,
Evan’s department supported the company’s three-year revenue growth rate of nearly 1000%.
Previously, Evan held financial and business development roles at Application Security Inc. He
began his career as a financial analyst with Dresdner Kleinwort in Manhattan, NY and holds a
BA in Economics from Wake Forest University.

46 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – November 2014 Edition
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