Integrate a Strategic Cybersecurity Approach

Security and Vulnerability Assessment of Social Media Sites: An Exploratory Study

Jensen Zhao

Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, USA

Sherry Y. Zhao

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

While the growing popularity of social media has brought many benefits to society, it has also

resulted in privacy and security threats. The authors assessed the security and vulnerability of

50 social media sites. The findings indicate that most sites (a) posted privacy and security

policies but only a minority stated clearly their execution of the key security measures; (b)

had network information that was publicly available through Internet search, which was

vulnerable to cyber intrusion; and (c) were secured with firewalls, filters, or port closures,

with only few ports detected as open, which need further improvement.

Keywords: computer network systems, social media, security, vulnerability

The world has witnessed how the Internet-based social

media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, have

changed the traditional communication landscape and

empowered people to play active roles in economic, social,

and political activities. Empowered with social media, con-

sumers are increasingly active in cocreating everything from

product design to promotional messages; they want compa-

nies to listen, appropriately engage, and respond (Berthon,

Pitt, McCarthy, & Kates, 2007; Kietzmann, Hermkens,

McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). For instance, acting on behalf

of her 4-year-old brother who loves to cook and wanted an

oven, McKenna Pope, a 13-year-old girl got more than

40,000 signatures on her online petition at Change.org

requesting the toy maker of the Easy-Bake Oven to make a

version for both boys and girls. In response, the manufac-

turer of the Easy-Bake Oven (Hasbro, Pawtucket, RI), a toy

marketed only to girls over its 50-year history, accepted the

petition to make a gender-neutral oven and to include boys

in the ads starting in 2013 (Cavaliere, 2012).

The top U.S. marketers at Fortune 100 and Forbes Top

200 companies indicated that the social media spending

was 3.5% of company marketing budget on average in

2009 and increased to 7.4% of the marketing budget in

2012. The top U.S. marketers expected that the social

media spending would reach 19.5% of their marketing

budgets in five years following 2012 (Moorman, 2012).

Research also indicated that the proper corporate use of

social media impacts positively the corporate revenue and

profit (Zhao & Zhao, 2014).

However, the growing popularity of social media on the

Internet has also resulted in privacy and security threats to

people, businesses, and governments. For instance, a

Nexgate’s cyber-threat analysis of the social media pres-

ence of the Fortune 100 firms from July 2013 to June 2014

reported that, on average, one in five Twitter accounts and

two of five Facebook accounts claiming to represent a For-

tune 100 brand were unauthorized. On aggregate, Fortune

100 brands experienced at least one compromise every day

on their social media accounts (Ashford, 2014a). In 2014,

70% of social media scams were manually shared and these

scams spread rapidly and were lucrative for cybercriminals

because people were more likely to click something posted

by a friend (Symantec, 2015).

As research showed, some social media sites were com-

promised by hackers; celebrities’ private pictures, personal

information, and emails were published by hackers on the

web (e.g., Ashford, 2014b; Gay, 2014; Nerney, 2011).

These attacks mainly targeted at networks’ TCP/IP (Layer

Correspondence should be addressed to Jensen Zhao, Ball State Uni-

versity, Miller College of Business, ISOM Department, Muncie, IN 47306,

USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available online

at www.tandfonline.com/vjeb.

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 90: 458–466, 2015

Copyright� Taylor and Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online

DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2015.1095705

4), secure socket layer (SSL; Layer 5), and HTTP and FTP

(Layer 7) according to the Open Systems Interconnection

Reference Model (McNurlin & Sprague, 2006). Overall,

cyber attackers’ primary purpose of social media intrusion

and attack is to steal customer data, defame celebrities,

damage brands, and manipulate markets for financial gains

(Ashford, 2014a; Symantec, 2015). According to the Trust-

wave Global Security Report, cybercrime gave attackers

1,425% return on investment (Trustwave, 2015).

The purpose of the present study was to assess the secu-

rity and vulnerability of the social media sites by examining

the following issues: the privacy and security policies and

implementations, information availability of social media

systems, computer network security of social media sites,

and the difference of privacy and security measures

between U.S.-based social media sites and other country-

based counterpart sites. Four research questions guided this

study:

Research Question 1 (RQ1): What privacy and security

measures are stated in policies on the social media

sites?

RQ2: What network information of social media sites is

publicly available on the Internet?

RQ3: How secure are the computer network systems

of the social media sites to cyber intrusions and

attacks?

RQ4: How do the U.S.-based social media sites differ from

other country-based counterparts in securing their

sites?

The findings of the study would benefit the social media

administrators for continuous improvement of their social

media security. In addition, the findings would enable stu-

dents specialized in e-business or Internet security to iden-

tify opportunities for internships or jobs at the social media

sites that need to strengthen or maintain their Internet secu-

rity. As the 2014 Occupational Outlook Handbook (Bureau

of Labor Statistics, 2014) indicated, the employment of

information security analysts was projected to grow 37%

from 2012 to 2022, much faster than the average for all

occupations. Demand for information security analysts is

expected to be very high as these analysts will be needed to

come up with innovative solutions to prevent hackers from

stealing critical information or creating havoc on computer

networks.

METHOD

To assess social media sites in terms of (a) privacy and

security policies and their implementation, (b) network

information availability of social media sites, and (c) com-

puter network system vulnerability to cyber intrusions and

attacks, we used three methods for data collection and

analysis: web content analytics, network system informa-

tion auditing, and computer network security mapping.

The web content analytics is commonly used in assess-

ing organizations’ web contents, deliveries, and strategies

(e.g., Boggs & Walters, 2006; Campbell & Beck, 2004;

Wilkinson & Cappel, 2005; Zhao & Zhao, 2004; Zhao,

Truell, Alexander, & Davis, 2006). We used this method

for systematically and objectively identifying and recording

the privacy and security policies available at the social net-

working sites and then analyzing what privacy and security

measures were stated as in implementation. This method

generated the following content categories for analysis: (a)

existence of privacy, security, child-protection, proper-use,

and no-liability policies; (b) antihacking notice; (c) data

transmission encryption; (d) intrusion detection; (e) investi-

gation of improper web activities; (f) login authentication;

and (g) web traffic monitoring.

To find out what network information of the social

media sites is publicly available on the Internet and how

vulnerable the social media sites are to cyber intrusions and

attacks, we conducted Google search for related websites

and auditing tools. We found three websites—ZoneEdit.

com, arin.net, and insecure.org—offering the tools.

The ZoneEdit.com site is a leading website in DNS

(Domain Name System) and domain management solu-

tions. It provides a free DNS lookup utility tool, which ena-

bles any online user to enter a website domain name (e.g.,

yahoo.com) for searching its IP (Internet Protocol; e.g.,

216.115.108.245) address (see at http://www.zoneedit.com/

lookup.html).

The arin.net (American Registry of Internet Numbers)

site provides a free database search service at ws.arin.net.

The search service allows any online user to find a

website’s registration information for resources registered

with ARIN. The ARIN database contains IP addresses,

autonomous system numbers, network name, type, and

range, organizations or customers that are associated with

these resources, and related points of contact. By entering a

site’s IP address into the search tool, any person can get all

the registered information of the site’s network systems

(see at http://www.arin.net/whois/).

The computer network security mapping is a major

method of using software tools for assessing the vulner-

ability of an entire computer network system without

intrusion and identifying areas of potential security

threats (e.g., Garcia, 2004; Winkler, 2004). To assess

the vulnerability of the computer network systems of

social media sites, we selected a popular, free network

mapping utility tool, Nmap, provided by the insecure.

org. Nmap is a port scanning and network mapping soft-

ware. It uses raw IP packets to determine what hosts are

available on the network; what ports are open, filtered,

firewalled, or closed; what services and servers those

hosts are offering; what operating systems they are run-

ning; and many other characteristics.

SECURITY AND VULNERABILITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA SITES 459

To ensure that using Nmap for this study is legal and eth-

ical, we reviewed related literature and could not find fed-

eral or state laws that specifically address the issue (e.g.,

U.S. Department of Justice, 2003). However, in a Georgia

District Court case of Moulton v. VC3, the judge declared a

port scan in the case legal because it did not impair the

integrity nor availability of the network. The judge found

that since the activity performed no damage to the target, it

could not be illegal (Jamieson, 2002). The implication of

this case is that a port scan is not an attack and usually

causes no damage to a target network; the legality and

ethics of a port scan depend on whether the intent of a port

scan is to cause damage or to improve security. As the pur-

pose of this study was to provide the social media sites’

administrators with the findings that they need for continu-

ous improvement of their site security, using Nmap for this

study was justified.

The population of this study consisted of the 210 active

social media sites around the world, which were ranked by

Alexa.com—an amazon.com company specialized in web

rating and analytics. This exploratory study randomly

selected a sample of 50 social media sites from the popula-

tion. The sample consists of 35 sites (70%) based in the

United States of America and 15 sites (30%) based in other

countries such as Argentina, China, Germany, Japan, Mex-

ico, Saudi Arabia, or Spain.

All the data were collected electronically between Janu-

ary and April 2015. The results of web content analytics,

network information auditing, and computer network secu-

rity mapping were saved in digital format and coded for sta-

tistical analysis with IBM SPSS. Frequency counts,

percentage distributions, means, and standard deviations

were prepared. The independent t test was employed to

identify whether any significant difference existed at the

.01 alpha level between the U.S.-based social networking

sites and other country-based counterparts in securing their

sites in order to address Research Question 4.

FINDINGS

The findings of the study are reported in the following

sequence: (a) privacy and security policies on social media

sites, (b) network information publicly available on Inter-

net, (c) security status of social media systems, and (d) dif-

ference between U.S.-based and other country-based social

media sites.

Privacy and Security Policies on Social Media Sites

RQ1 asked, “What privacy and security measures are stated

in policies on the social media sites?” As Table 1 shows, of

the 50 social media sites, 46 sites (92%) provided a link on

their home pages to the privacy policy, but the name of the

link varied, and included privacy policy, privacy

information, policies, and data use policy. Forty-five sites

(90%) presented a child-protection policy link on their

home pages or embedded it within the privacy policy.

Forty-five sites (90%) also presented a no-liability state-

ment as the disclaimer or attached to the security policy.

For example, Facebook’s no-liability disclaimer (see Fig-

ure 1) stated, “We will not be liable to you for any lost

profits or other consequential, special, indirect, or inciden-

tal damages arising out of or in connection with this state-

ment or Facebook, even if we have been advised of the

possibility of such damages.”

Among the 50 social media sites, 41 sites (82%) pro-

vided a link on their home pages to the security policy as

well as a proper-use note that was attached to the security

policy or disclaimer. The security policies indicated that

the social media sites are committed to ensuring a secure

environment that can protect personal and business infor-

mation by implementing various security measures (see, for

example, Figure 2). While the majority sites (74%) stated

using SSL encryption to protect data transmissions, only a

minority of the sites stated clearly the execution of the fol-

lowing key security measures: authentication, using user-

name and password authentication to protect for account

privacy and security (24%); antipassword guessing, limit-

ing login to three trials only (8%); monitoring, using server

management software to monitor traffic (4%);

TABLE 1

Social Media Sites’ Security Measures Stated on Their Sites

(N D 50)

Policy status Frequency Percentage

A privacy policy link present on the site 46 92

A child-protection policy link present on

the site

45 90

A no-liability note attached to the security

policy or disclaimer

45 90

A proper-use note attached to the security

policy or disclaimer

41 82

A security policy link present on the site 41 82

Security measures

Encryption: using secure socket layer

(SSL) encryption to protect data

transmissions

37 74

Authentication: using username and

password to protect for account privacy

and security

12 24

Antipassword guessing: limiting login to 3

trials only

4 8

Monitoring: using software programs to

monitor traffic

2 4

Investigation: investigating improper

activities to identify individual persons

1 2

Auditing: identifying unauthorized

attempts to upload or change information

1 2

460 J. ZHAO AND S. Y. ZHAO

investigation, investigating improper activities to identify

individual persons (2%); and auditing, using intrusion

detection software to audit and identify unauthorized

attempts to upload or change information or otherwise

cause damage (2%).

Network Information Publicly Available on the Internet

RQ2 asked, “What network information of social media

sites is publicly available on the Internet?” The Internet

search at ZoneEdit.com and ws.arin.net identified the IP

FIGURE 1. No-liability statement at Facebook site.

FIGURE 2. Security statement at LinkedIn site.

SECURITY AND VULNERABILITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA SITES 461

addresses and network information of almost all the 50

social media sites. As Table 2 shows, 100% of social media

sites’ IP addresses were publicly available on the Internet.

As a consequence, with these publicly available IP

addresses, any online users could go to ws.arin.net and

enter the IP addresses for identifying a large amount of net-

work information from the majority of the social media

sites, such as a site’s organization name; physical address;

network range, name, handle, type, parent, and CIDR

(classless interdomain routing); registration date, last

updated time, phone number, email address, and comments

(see Table 2).

Security Status of Social Media Network Systems

RQ3 asked, “How secure are the computer network systems

of the social media sites to cyber intrusions and attacks?”

Computer network systems connect to the Internet through

communication ports. The ports of an Internet-connected

computer are classified into three categories: (a) the well-

known ports, (b) the registered ports, and (c) the dynamic

or private ports. The numbers of the well-known ports

range from 0 to 1023; those of the registered ports are from

1024 through 49151; and those of the dynamic or private

ports range from 49152 to 65535. If the ports are open on

the Internet without firewalls or filters, they are very vulner-

able to cyber intrusions and attacks. As Table 3 illustrates,

of the 50 social media sites scanned by using Nmap, the

majority (68%) of the sites revealed only one or two open

ports at their respective sites. By contrast, only the minority

of the sites revealed three or more open ports. While 13

sites (26%) were detected three or four open ports, only

three sites (6%) revealed five, 10, and 26 open ports on their

respective sites.

The Nmap scan report also indicated that most social

media sites’ Internet ports were filtered or behind firewalls.

As Figure 3 shows, while Nmap scan did not detect any

port information at five social media sites (10%), it reported

that four sites (8%) had around 150 ports filtered or behind

firewalls and the majority of the sites (82%) had filtered or

firewalled their 925 up to 1,000 ports, respectively.

Regarding the types of open Internet ports, 49 sites

(98%) had their Port 80/TCP open for HTTP (hypertext

transfer protocol) or world wide web services (see

Figure 4). Web servers identified from Port 80/TCP were

Apache, Microsoft IIS, and Netscape. Second, 46 sites

(92%) also had Port 443/TCP open for encrypted https serv-

ices. In addition, a minority of the sites had the following

ports open for varied purposes: Port 8080/TCP open for

http-proxy—a more secure web service than Port 80/tcp

(12%), Port 53/TCP open for DNS domain service (6%),

Port 22/TCP open for email communication (6%), Port 21/

TCP open for FTP file transfer (4%), and Port 8443/tcp

open as a https-alternative for encrypted data transmissions

(4%).

The Nmap scan also reported the server information and

operating systems at the 50 social media sites. As Figure 5

shows, while 20% of the sites did not reveal any match of

computer server information, 80% were detected of running

varied servers such as Nginx (34%), Apache (24%), Aka-

maiGHost (6%), ATS (4%), Varnish (4%), Haproxy (2%),

GFE (2%), H3rr (2%), and PWS httpd (2%). However, the

Nmap scan did not detect computer operating systems at

the majority of the sites (70%, see Figure 6). But the minor-

ity of the sites (30%) were detected as running Linux

(18%), Dell (6%), MS Windows (4%), and NetDBS (2%),

respectively.

Difference Between U.S.- and Other Country-Based Social Media Sites

RQ4 asked, “How do the U.S.-based social media sites dif-

fer from other country-based counterparts in securing their

sites?” As Table 4 shows, in comparison with other coun-

try-based social media sites, the U.S.-based counterparts

had significantly more secure measures in the following six

aspects: (a) child protection policy, t(48) D 4.099, p < .000; (b) privacy policy, t(48) D 3.495, p < .001; (c) SSL encryption, t(48) D 2.961, p < .005; (d) security

TABLE 3

Number of Internet Ports Open at Social Media Sites

Group

Open ports Sites Frequency Percentage

1 1

2 33 34 68

3 7

4 6 13 26

5 1

10 1

26 1 3 6

Total 50 50 100

TABLE 2

Social Media Network Information Publicly Available on the Internet

Category Frequency Percentage

IP addresses 50 100

Organization name 50 100

Address (city, state/province, country) 50 100

Network range 50 100

Network name 50 100

Network handle 50 100

Network type 50 100

CIDR (Classless Interdomain Routing) 50 100

Registration date 50 100

Last updated 50 100

Phone number 50 100

Email address 50 100

Network parent 39 78

Comments 33 66

462 J. ZHAO AND S. Y. ZHAO

policy, t(48) D 2.802, p < .007; (e) proper use statement, t (48) D 2.802, p < .007; and (f) no-liability statement, t(48) D 2.705, p < .009.

SUMMARYAND CONCLUSIONS

The majority of the social media sites posted links to pri-

vacy policy, child-protection policy, no-liability statement,

security policy, and proper-use guidelines on their home

pages. The majority of the security policies stated using

SSL encryption to protect data transmissions. But only a

minority of the sites stated clearly the execution of the key

security measures: authentication, antipassword guessing,

monitoring, investigation, and auditing. These findings

indicate the need for further improvement because around

10–18% of the social media sites failed to post the privacy-

and security-related policies. In addition, many sites need

to clearly state what key security measures are in execution

as an effective communication to not only assure users of

FIGURE 3. Number of internet ports filtered or firewalled at social media sites.

FIGURE 4. Types of internet ports open at social media sites.

SECURITY AND VULNERABILITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA SITES 463

FIGURE 5. Server systems vulnerability status of social media sites.

FIGURE 6. Operating systems vulnerability status of social media sites.

464 J. ZHAO AND S. Y. ZHAO

the site’s security measures, but also to deter potential

intruders and attackers from trying improper activities

(Ashford, 2014b; Symantec, 2015).

Second, the majority of the social media sites’ network

information was publicly available through the Google

search. Such information included networks’ IP address

and physical address; network range, name, handle, type,

parent, and CIDR; registration date, last updated time,

phone number, and email address. The information makes

the sites vulnerable to cyber intrusions and attacks. For

example, searching for the IP address of a site is often the

first step for cyber intruders to connect to the server of the

site. In addition, the network range and CIDR address

reveal the total number of hosts the network possess and

the network’s higher and lower level routing information.

Having put these pieces of information together, a cyber

intruder has a full picture of which parts of the network are

vulnerable and easy to intrude. These findings suggest that

social media sites should consider negotiating with Ameri-

can Registry of Internet Numbers on requiring username

and password login for access to a web portal’s registration

information. To make the negotiation successful, social

media companies need to form an industry alliance and

conduct collective negotiation with American Registry of

Internet Numbers.

Furthermore, the network scan illustrated that the social

media sites had most of their ports closed, filtered, or

behind firewalls; only very few ports were detected as

open: Port 80/TCP and Port 443/TCP. The open Port 80/

TCP enabled Nmap to detect that 80% of the sites were run-

ning servers such as Nginx (34%), Apache (24%), Aka-

maiGHost (6%), ATS (4%), Varnish (4%), Haproxy (2%),

GFE (2%), H3rr (2%), and PWS httpd (2%). Obviously, the

sites currently keeping open Port 80/tcp should consider

adopting more secured open Port 8080/tcp for http-proxy,

thereby making the site anonymous on the Internet. Regard-

ing the open Port 443/TCP or alternative Port 8443/TCP for

encrypted https services, user IDs and passwords must be

required to grant access to the port and outgoing access to

the port from servers should be restricted.

Finally, the U.S.-based social media sites had signifi-

cantly more policies and measures than other country-based

counterparts in the following six aspects: privacy policy,

security policy, child-protection policy, SSL encryption,

proper use statement, and no-liability statement. Therefore,

other country-based social media sites should consider fol-

lowing the U.S. examples regarding such policies and

measures.

RECOMMENDATION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

We recommend that a further study of this type be conducted

in three years among the active social media sites around the

world for measuring their site security and vulnerability,

comparing the sites for strengths and weaknesses, and identi-

fying opportunities for further improvement.

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TABLE 4

Independent t-Test of Security Measures Between U.S.-Based and Other Country-Based Social Media Sites

Security measures

Country base: 1 D United States; 2 D other n M SD t df Sig. (two-tailed)

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