Padgett-Beale Company
Padgett-Beale company operates in the hotel industry, providing short-term housing and lodging for tourists, visitors, and travelers. Some of the services the company provides on its properties include catering, meals, conferences, events, entertainment, amenities, and various others (King, 2017). Padgett-Beale also operate several recreational vehicle parks.
In order to compete with others in the hotel industry, the company maintains a presence on the World Wide Web, providing a resort affiliates program, online advertising and promotions, assistance in architecture and design, consulting, insurance, and guest loyalty programs (King, 2017). Social media plays an important part in Padgett-Beale’s online advertising and marketing strategy, with Facebook being one of the primary vehicles of delivery (King, 2017). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Facebook on the subject of cybersecurity and compatibility with Padgett-Beale’s cybersecurity philosophy and goals.
Facebook Coverage and Security Issues
Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms, with over 2.85 billion unique users (Arrate et al., 2020). Effectively, almost every second individual on this planet has a Facebook account. Nevertheless, despite having the finances and the capabilities to protect its users, the company’s cybersecurity practices are almost always lagging behind. Facebook frequently shows itself in the center of cybersecurity scandals (Arrate et al., 2020). The latest leak occurred in April, 2021, with 530 million users’ (almost 20%) data exposed as a result of hacking attempts (Straub et al., 2021).
Facebook did not notify users about the breach, which runs contradictory to Padgett-Beale’s cybersecurity goals, with aims to protect its own privacy as well as that of its clients (King, 2017). This was not the first breach of this kind, as similar incidents repeat approximately 3-4 times each year, with Facebook promising to improve cybersecurity but failing to deliver (Straub et al., 2021). It shows that the company’s approach to privacy and client data protection is lacking.
While Facebook does provide larger coverage than any other company in terms of the user base, there are inherent risks to using it as an advertising platform for Padgett-Beale. Some of these risks include attracting potential offenders familiar with Facebook’s cybersecurity architecture and gaps in it, while the other involves exposing employees to these risks through having them participate in marketing efforts on the site (Konyeha, 2020). Padgett-Beale should limit the use of Facebook by its marketing department only to the purposes of advertising and promotion (Konyeha, 2020). Fan groups for such a company could become a liability and a target for hackers, exposing not only the company but clients also.
Employees should not be allowed to use Facebook during the workday, or have work-related accounts on the site. Since Facebook is susceptible to losing personal data, it could allow malware and other forms of hacking enter Padgett-Beale’s systems through the individual’s smartphones (Konyeha, 2020). The company should invest in cheap work phones that would be used for work purposes only, without access to Facebook or most other social media sites.
Potential recommendations for Padgett-Beale in regard to Facebook can be summarized as following:
- Use Facebook for advertising and promotion purposes only, with as little sensitive data exposure as possible;
- Employees are prohibited from using Facebook during worktime and are to utilize company-provided phones for the purposes of communication;
- Facebook should not be used as a means of communication between customers and employees, nor is it a safe vehicle for intercompany communication. Instead, Padgett-Beale should research smaller and more secure communication providers.
The means outlined above are in line with Padgett-Beale’s cybersecurity strategy and would improve its systems’ overall resilience to outside threats.
References
Arrate, A., González-Cabañas, J., Cuevas, Á., & Cuevas, R. (2020). Malvertising in Facebook: Analysis, quantification, and solution. Electronics, 9(8), 1332-1340.
King, V. J. (2017). Pargett-Beale, Inc. Web.
Konyeha, S. (2020). Exploring cybersecurity threats in digital marketing. marketing, 2(3), 12-20.
Straub, J. (2021). Cyber-mitigation: Cybersecurity emergency management. Journal of Emergency Management, 18(6), 463-473.