Proofpoint is today releasing a new piece of research which analyses the social media security threats faced by ten of the top UK FTSE 100 brands, which include a sampling some of the largest UK firms from Media, Financial, Retail, and Pharmaceutical companies.
The period of data spans from Jan 1, 2014 to Feb 3, 2015 and the data includes Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and GooglePlus accounts and represents 82 million engaged users, consisting of Likes, Followers, Subscribers, and Plus Ones across 20 authorized accounts.
Key findings from the study include:
The largest of the UK brands analysed has on average 325 accounts, which is very consistent with findings that the top Fortune 100 US accounts had on average 340 accounts. However, compared to the Fortune Top 100 social media accounts, UK brands exhibit two times as many unauthorized accounts for every verified or authorized account on both Facebook and Twitter
For the ten UK brands, four of every five (80 percent) of Facebook accounts are unauthorized, and two of every five (40 percent) of Twitter accounts are unauthorized. Unauthorized accounts include fraudulent accounts that impersonate the brand with the intent of ripping off consumers, protest accounts that attack the brand, partners using the brand without approval, and simply third parties trying to leverage the brand to attract an audience to their message