Ultimate Knowledge to run online training in social media security

Ultimate Knowledge Institute (UKI) in the US has launched a series of online training classes in social media security to address the growing demand for data protection.

UKI - an information technology organisation of over 25,000 trained professionals - is running the programme to prevent businesses from suffering breaches in their networking policies.

The first session will take place on November 7th-8th and is due to cover the history and principles of social media, the risks it can involve and how to respond to incidents, as well as information on management and policy frameworks.

Instructor on the course Dr Scott Wells said the classes use the company's experience of more than 15 years to create and deliver effective solutions for the Department of Defence and Fortune 500 companies - the top public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue.

He added: "The unique aspect of this training is its focus on technical granularity specific to social media platforms, such as cross site scripting, socware, geo-tagging and evil twin attacks."

Through the course, students will prepare for the Social Media Security Professional Certification exam, powered by the Computing Technology Industry Association.

They also have the opportunity to earn continuing education points towards Security+, Network+ and Certified Information Systems Security Professional certificates.

A recent report from Norton Cybercrime revealed that out of 13,000 organisations across 24 countries, 75 per cent of executives think cybercriminals will focus increasingly on social networks as a way of attacking a company.

However, according to the Global State of Information Security Survey 2013 by PricewaterhouseCoopers, only 38 per cent of organisations have a strategy in place for tackling these issues.

Colonel Christopher Ballard of Army Cyber Command G-3 stated the vulnerabilities detected in social media, ubiquitous encryption and malicious software "will be essential for us to defend ourselves and influence the nature of future conflict".