How should a business protect its social media accounts?

Treat them as business assets: record ownership, use corporate email, assign individual roles, enable MFA, control agencies and connected applications, and maintain recovery methods that do not depend on one person. Each platform controls its own recovery process, so the organization should prepare before it needs that process.

Risks to review

  • Passwords shared among employees, agencies or suppliers.
  • Accounts registered to personal email addresses or telephone numbers.
  • Sessions left active on unmanaged or former devices.
  • External applications that can publish, read messages or manage advertising.
  • Payment methods and advertising accounts exposed through a compromised identity.
  • Former collaborators who retain administrative roles.
  • Impersonation profiles that request payment or distribute malicious links.

Safe recommendations

  1. Maintain an inventory of official accounts, owners, administrators and authorized agencies.
  2. Use corporate email, individual roles and MFA or passkeys where supported.
  3. Keep at least two backup administrators with controlled recovery methods.
  4. Review sessions, devices, connected applications, advertising permissions and payment methods.
  5. Remove access on the day an employment or supplier relationship ends.
  6. Document how to report impersonation and how to communicate with customers through another channel.
  7. Preserve screenshots, URLs, times and messages before making changes during an incident.

Response to a compromised social account

First 15 minutes

  • Confirm the incident through a channel other than the affected account.
  • Preserve evidence and use a trusted device.
  • Attempt to close sessions and protect the associated email without deleting information.

First hour

  • Review administrators, applications, advertising, payment methods and recovery changes.
  • Start the platform’s official process and warn the internal team responsible for the brand.
  • Prepare an alternate customer channel if fraud is possible.

First 24 hours and recovery

  • Document posts, messages, spending and potentially affected people.
  • Confirm ownership, remove unknown access and restore minimum necessary roles.
  • Review the cause and update inventory, recovery and offboarding procedures.

When to seek specialized help

  • Fraudulent posts, links, payment requests or unauthorized advertising appeared.
  • The attacker changed owners, administrators, email, telephone or recovery methods.
  • The account controls advertising, payments, customer support or related brands.
  • The platform requests technical or business evidence that must be organized without losing traceability.

Reference sources

These public sources provide general good-practice guidance. They do not replace an assessment of your environment.