The Risks in the Social Networks - an Exploratory Study

While social networking has gone on almost as long as societies themselves have existed, the unparalleled potential of the Web to facilitate such connections has led to an exponential and ongoing expansion of that phenomenon. In addition to social media platforms, the capacity for social interaction and collaboration is increasingly built into business applications [1]. The risks in the online space and particularly in social networks represent one of the most important and opened issue of our time. The paper is an exploratory study with the focus point related to an original research based on a questionnaire with more that 300 of respondents. Topics about the risks in the social networks such as: the security in the social networks, incidents, viruses, worms, spam, the level of security regarding the applications used on social networks, etc were analysed. The findings of this research provide a basis that is useful to understand the importance of the prevention and treatment of risks in the social networks. Regarding the management perspective of an organization, this paper highlights the necessity of the investments in companies security against cyber risks. The paper also provides useful findings in the field of cyber risks for the online community.