Social media security awareness for Civil Service accounts

Posted on: 16 September 2021

The Government Communication Service (GCS) has published a new piece of guidance on social media security for government communicators.

Created by the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO)’s security team along with a working group from across government, the intention of this guidance is to raise awareness and knowledge on how to use government official social media accounts responsibly and securely.

The power of social media

Social media provides an avenue for government organisations to positively engage with their customers, providing access to information and guidance, changes in policy, celebrating national occasions, and much more.

There are approximately 25 million followers across all government social media channels, and in 2020 the Number 10 and Cabinet Office digital teams alone produced content that had over 3 billion social media impressions.

As our audiences on these platforms continue to grow, it becomes increasingly important that we all, as government communicators, prioritise the security of the accounts we manage.

What to expect

This training pack will take you through the following:

  1. Government social media security policy
  2. Using and managing social media responsibly and securely
  3. Protecting our people and premises
  4. A quiz – to put your knowledge to the test

You will learn about key core principles for any communications team, including simple actions that you can implement straight away such as enabling 2-factor authentication (2FA) on all of your accounts.

You will learn about the potential consequences of bad practice, enforcing the need to keep our accounts as secure as possible.

You will learn about the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)’s principles and how to ensure you follow them when running your accounts:

  1. Trust the platform
  2. Control access
  3. Content approval process
  4. Track users’ actions
  5. Develop and test an incident recovery plan

Once you have gone through the training slides, you will have the chance to put your knowledge to the test in a short, interactive quiz. If you are unsure of any of the answers, you can go back and read through the relevant slides again to solidify your knowledge.

Access Social media security awareness for official Civil Service accounts training (GCS members access)

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