News
Proofpoint TAP Social Discover Closes the IT Knowledge Gap on Social Media Threats
August 2015 by Marc Jacob
Proofpoint, Inc., announced Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection (TAP) Social Discover, which provides IT administrators with immediate visibility into the social media accounts linked to their organizations and the ability to persistently monitor for spam, phishing, malware, bad actors and fraud. Armed with this knowledge and Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection threat intelligence across both social and email vectors, security teams can create a more comprehensive strategy to combat advanced attacks.
According to a recent Proofpoint study, Fortune 100 brands are experiencing at least one compromise per business day on their social media channels. The social media security risk to organizations was also recently echoed by Greg Young, research vice president for Gartner, Inc., in his Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit 2015 talk entitled The Next Three Years in Threats. During the discussion he stated, “Existing vulnerabilities dominate malware lists and it’s important to close old known holes. However, manually distributed malware via social media and in response to phishing will be the greatest growth category.”
Proofpoint TAP Social Discover Closes the Social Media Risk Visibility Gap
Proofpoint TAP Social Discover provides valuable context into an organization’s social media risk footprint across all leading social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest. Without the need to deploy software or hardware, Proofpoint TAP Social Discover does not require security teams to work with digital marketing teams or individual employee advocates to get access to social accounts, nor does it interfere with any social marketing activities. With Proofpoint’s added visibility and context, IT/security teams can engage with their own digital and social media teams to better protect and scale their social media programs.
Completely cloud-based, Proofpoint TAP Social Discover uses more than nine unique security classification engines, including machine learning, behavioral analysis, sandboxing, heuristics, social app signatures and more. IT administrators can easily see social media security risks and issues with Proofpoint TAP Social Discover’s dashboard, built-in reports and alerts. Visibility is also heightened with seamless SIEM and broader security operation center dashboard integration.
Once nefarious activities are identified by Proofpoint TAP Social Discover, administrators can take immediate action with the broader Proofpoint TAP for Social product line to combat the growing wave of social risks. Proofpoint TAP Social Discover enables security teams to connect the social media risks they discover with cybercriminals who may also be targeting the organization through other attack vectors, such as email.
Gaining visibility across all threat vectors dramatically enhances the ability of security professionals to develop enforceable threat mitigation policies. This protects organizations while enabling employees, customers and partners to interact more safely on social channels.
