With today’s world being so irreversibly connected, social media platforms are more than spaces for interaction and/or promotion, they are key battlegrounds. Social media attacks are getting more frequent and sophisticated everyday, targeting everyone from individuals to businesses to public institutions and more. Being able to understand the main types of social media attacks is a crucial skill in building the best possible defense.
What is the goal of most social media based attacks? Predominantly, the answer is a combination of stealing sensitive information, manipulating perception, damaging reputation and causing overall disruption. The most effective social media threats are usually carried out through a series of targeted, coordinated actions.
To help gain a better understanding of the topic, here is some essential information on the most prevalent types of social media attacks, along with how a proactive social media monitoring tool is key to preventing them.
This is one of the most common types of social media attacks, involving the creation of profiles that seek to imitate people or brands with the aim of eroding trust, spreading harmful narratives and potentially scamming followers.
Some of the most common signs of a fake profile include:
• Low quality avatars.
• Misspellings in handles and names.
• Poorer than expected post engagement.
• Sudden spikes in followers.
Such accounts can lead to problems like the leaking of private information, or tricking users into handing over personal data through fake customer service or malicious links.
How to prevent falling victim:
• Use identity verification tools to check ‘official’ pages.
• Educate users on how to recognise the signs of verified accounts.
• Utilize monitoring software such as Osavul that can effortlessly detect suspicious clone activity.
Coordinated narrative attacks make use of carefully timed posts in order to manipulate perception of an individual, company or government. Such posts will frequently include misleading visuals, half truths or out of context information.
These kinds of social media attacks originate from multiple accounts across a number of platforms, giving the false appearance of a widespread, organic movement. Impact can be long lasting and difficult to reverse once the bad information has taken hold.
Tactics commonly employed include:
1. Hijacking a trending hashtag and overloading it with misleading narratives.
2. Bombarding a comment section with strategically aligned views.
3. Resharing and repositioning from multiple accounts to increase visibility.
How it can be prevented:
Again, Osavul’s powerful suite of tools are able to monitor for shifts in tone, identifying key narrative drovers and uncovering abnormal patterns of engagement, all of which can help an organization to respond quickly rather than reacting too late.
Automated accounts, known as bots, are used to amplify the visibility of a chosen message, which equally suppresses any organic discussion. Such social media attacks are designed to look like real engagement, making an idea of a post look much more popular or relevant than it actually is.
Bots have the ability to:
• Like posts on a mass scale to boost perceived credibility.
• Spam keywords in order to manipulate algorithms.
• Flood replies and/or mentions in order to silence authentic users.
If left unchecked, bot networks can be very successful in spreading misleading content, distorting conversation and overwhelming real voices.
How it can be prevented:
• Flagging accounts that contain unusually repetitive content.
• Using Osavul to analyze the quality of the engagement, not just the pure volume. Identifying bot behavior quickly can help to prevent perception being irreversibly skewed.
Social platforms can very easily be weaponized in order to harass individuals, particularly public figures, high profile employees or whistleblowers. Such abuse can escalate extremely quickly with the leaking of personal details like email address, phone number and other private information.
Doxxing refers to the act of publishing a person’s personal data with specific malicious intent, and it can be life altering for victims.
Tips for prevention and response:
• Make regular checks of what personal information of yours is publicly accessible.
• Set up keyword based alerts that notify when a name combined with ‘contact’ or ‘address’ has been searched.
• Employ Osavul to monitor for patterns of harassment like mass tagging or mass aggressive messaging, leading to potential evidence that can support legal action.
The evolution and rise of AI-generated imagery and media means that visuals have become just as harmful as text. Altered photographs and fabricated videos can convincingly suggest that someone has said or done something they haven’t, and controversial content can spread like wildfire.
Realistic media can go viral in a matter of minutes, leaving a trail of mistrust and confusion.
How to prevent such cases:
• Train a team to perform reverse image searches, and be able to verify original sources.
• Use AI-driven tools for your own benefit, with the ability to detect anomalies and inconsistencies in things like pixel patterns and facial movement.
• Utliize Osavul’s visual trend detection monitoring to identify visual content that is very likely manipulated.
The bottom line is that each type of social media attack carries its own set of nuances, but the commonality they share is a design to exploit visibility and erode trust. Defending against these threats social media poses requires more than just reactive damage control from an organization, rather a commitment to data-driven insights.
1. Audit online presence and access points.
2. Educate staff on the common attack avenues.
3. Invest in effective real-time monitoring tools that provide more than just basic alerts.
Osavul is the best answer when it comes to a patrolling social media intelligence platform, for a number of leading reasons.
• Real-time alerts to any potentially suspicious activity.
• Strong analysis of bot behavior.
• Ability to monitor across platforms.
• Sophisticated abuse and harassment tracking.
• Visual trend detection.
Ultimately, the truth is that social media attacks are no longer rare or isolated, they are simply an everyday aspect of digital life. This goes for every online participant from a global brand to a public official to a casual social media user.
With the right vigilance and tools like those offered by Osavul, the types of social media attacks detailed can be detected and prevented as early as possible.
The question of what is the goal of most social media based attacks is clear, but the even more crucial question is how to utilize social media monitoring benefits and what we can all do to stop them.
