When was the last time you heard about a business’s data getting leaked? We’d hazard a guess that, unfortunately, it probably wasn’t that long ago. Even though remote and hybrid work is becoming the norm, teams of all sizes are still learning how to best protect their security.

And when it comes to content campaigns, security protection is a top priority. Since content campaigns are typically run by not just one person but a whole team of people, there are always a lot of balls in the air at any given time. Although this is ideal for campaigns, it also opens the door to critical security risks.

But what are the different security risk areas? And how do you reduce those risks and protect your overall brand during a content marketing campaign?

Buckle up (safety first!) because you’re about to find out.

Understanding the Risks

Content campaigns often involve multiple stakeholders, including both internal employees and external contractors. This multi-person involvement creates a complex security landscape and presents various risks. Although these risks can be unintentional or intentional, the resulting consequences for your brand can be catastrophic—and, unfortunately, you won’t know if the outcomes were intentional or not before it’s too late.

Unintentional Outcomes

The two most prevalent unintentional outcomes both involve leaks: getting hacked and content leaks.

Sharing sensitive information such as login credentials has the potential to get accidentally leaked, which can then lead to accounts getting hacked.

As a result, this puts additional sensitive information at risk of getting exposed.

Alternatively, a team member with access to accounts might unintentionally release information.

This could be anything from prematurely publishing a single blog, releasing or “dumping” a large amount of content all at once, sharing important company announcements or reveals, or even deploying a product.

It’s not hard to imagine how bad any of those actions would be for a business.

Intentional Outcomes

Unfortunately, sometimes people act with unexpected but malicious intent. For content marketing campaigns, this can entail account takeovers or social engineering scams.

An account takeover is when a team member with access takes control of brand accounts and subsequently acts dangerously. For instance, the employee might intentionally post negative or crude content, delete or falsify important content, or even leak sensitive information such as client information, banking credentials, and so on.

Social engineering scams are especially frightening.

This is when the team member impersonates someone else—like a higher-up employee or a vendor—and tricks someone else into providing sensitive information.

For example, the employee could trick a customer into providing credit card information, or even trick another employee into providing login access to other company accounts.

Account Spoofing

It’s important to recognize that account spoofing falls outside of the intentional or unintentional outcome umbrella, as it has less to do with any risks associated with teams sharing information and is instead more of a general security risk. Nevertheless, account spoofing is still a very real, and very important, risk to understand.

Account spoofing is when a scammer creates an account that aims to mimic and pose as your brand. The goal of a spoof account is to trick users into thinking they’re interacting with your brand, and then execute dangerous activities. For instance, account spoofers might try to trick a user into sharing sensitive information or making an illegitimate purchase, or they might launch a phishing attack. Whatever the scammer does, however, ultimately causes damage to your brand’s reputation that can be incredibly challenging to repair.

Preventing Content Campaign Security Risks

Knowing the potential security risks of your content campaign is only part of the battle. Fortunately, it lays the foundation for implementing the following prevention measures.

Secure Communication Channels

Secure communication channels are essential to protect your content campaign team’s sensitive information and data. We suggest leveraging secure communication tools like a project wiki, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Signal.

Principle of Least Privilege (POLP)

The POLP principle dictates that each team member should only have the minimum access permissions required for their tasks. This significantly curtails the risk of accidental or intentional security breaches and leaks.

We suggest implementing strict access controls to ensure the highest level of control, granting the least amount of access necessary for each team member, and ensuring that business owners can always overwrite the actions of other users.

Account and Password Management

It’s vital to establish clear guidelines for creating and managing brand accounts. Remember to use strong, distinctive passwords for each account, and encourage other team members to follow suit. You can use a password manager to help manage and secure passwords easily and effectively.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

MFA provides an extra layer of security during account login attempts. We strongly encourage requiring all employees to utilize MFA for every one of their accounts in order to protect them from unauthorized access.

Spoof Account Tracking

The best way to track spoof accounts is to monitor your brand’s online presence for mentions, tags, and usernames similar to your own. It’s also advisable to set up a robust reporting system so that any employee who notices suspicious activities can report them promptly and effectively.

An Informed Team  

Above all else, an informed team is your best prevention tactic against security breaches in a content marketing campaign. We suggest training and educating team members on the following security topics:

Other General Tips

Reducing security risks is an activity that spans the entirety of a content campaign and should always be top of mind across the whole team. Unfortunately, there’s no checklist of steps that will guarantee security.

Not only is every business different, but every content marketing campaign is also different—and thus comes with its own set of risks. So instead, any new preventative measures should be implemented upon discovery.

To help you build out your prevention strategy and identify other security tactics, we’ve put together a handful of additional suggestions:

Secure Content Campaigns With The Writers For Hire

Remember, content campaign security is a continuous process that requires meticulous vigilance, education, and the right tools. But the reality is that many businesses don’t have the time to dedicate to security and countless others just aren’t sure where to start.

That doesn’t mean you should drive your content campaign without a seatbelt. Instead, a team at a content writing firm like The Writers For Hire can take the wheel. Our B2B content marketing services can help significantly reduce security threats and protect your brand during your next content campaign. Together, we can help your team stay proactive, be informed, and keep your content campaigns secure.6+