Social Media Fatigue

One of the biggest push-backs I hear from people when I talk about how wonderful I think LinkedIn will be for business professionals is that they’re tired. They’re tired of joining a new social network. They’re tired of going through the dance of re-adding their friends and connections on yet another platform. They’re tired of having to think up even more content for yet another platform, after having finally committed to Facebook or Twitter or wherever else.

Social Media Fatigue

For a lot of people, the fatigue comes from that sense that they’re doing all the work, but not seeing the results. For another group, it’s that feeling that we've all done this before, so why do it again? For others, it’s just that we’re getting to the point where we feel maybe that we've shared all we can think of sharing, and we’re tired of rehashing the same old things over and over again.

Are any of these you?

Wake Up

Writing about social media can be boring. Writing about how to empower people, however, is pretty much always interesting. Telling people the same old thing on Linkedin that you’d have shared on Twitter or Facebook or Google + is about as boring as it sounds. Maybe try doing something new with the platform. I wonder why I’ve given myself permission to do so here.” Wake up. We can all find new ways to talk about social media by NOT TALKING ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA. (Queue the Fight Club comments.) The thing is this: we’re using these tools to enable new connections. We’re using them to make different kinds of business happen. We’re using these tools to help causes that matters, and so much more.

It’s Your Choice

Look at your last 20 posts on any social network, and/or your blog. What are you talking about? Do you find yourself interesting? What else could you talk about instead? What would really change the nature of the conversation? How could you move from “talking about what everyone else is talking about” into talking about what’s next, what’s new, what’s personal, what’s helpful?

Make Your Own Media

These tools let you tell the stories you want to tell. They let you make something meaningful to you, to your business, to your pursuits. Nothing dictates how you use the tools to be your own media platform except your imagination and your ability to create. With that in mind, think up a few ways you might want to put these tools to use to tell the stories you want to tell.

If you’re a real estate professional, why not bring the neighborhoods you’re selling to life in stories and videos.

If you’re a freelance photographer, share the stories behind the photos.

If you’re a corporate blogger, tell us the passionate stories behind the big official posts.

If you’re writing just for your own passion, show us what you’re passionate about.

If you’re someone selling something, tell us the stories around that product or service.

The opportunity is for us to make something interesting and worthwhile, to be helpful, to empower others, to encourage and inspire others. If we’re fatigued, let’s all wake up.

I’ll do it too, okay?

4.5 Million Records Stolen from Community Health by Chinese Hackers

Another day, another multi-million record data breach: national healthcare chain Community Health Systems (CHS) says that about 4.5 million pieces of “non-medical patient identification data related to our physician practice” have been stolen by what are likely Chinese hackers.

The attacks occurred in April and June, and were disclosed in a regulatory filing, according toReuters. However, the stolen records stretch back beyond that timeframe, affecting patients who have used the company’s physicians' service over the past five years.

Franklin, Tenn.-based CHS operates 206 hospitals in 29 states. No medical/clinical information or credit card numbers were lifted, but the data included information that would be useful for identity theft: patient names, addresses, birth dates, telephone numbers and social security numbers from millions of individuals.

CHS is liable for personal patient information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA, and has thus hired Mandiant to investigate the breach while it works with federal authorities on the heist. Mandiant said that the score appeared to make use of an unspecified, “highly sophisticated malware and technology.” That has since been eradicated from the system, and Mandiant said that it has put in place “other remediation efforts that are designed to protect against future intrusions of this type.”

And thanks to its cyber liability and privacy insurance, CHS said that the incident will likely not have a “material adverse effect on its business or financial results.”

However, that is likely a too-bullish comment, researchers said. “Community Health Systems leadership has now invested in what [they] believe has remediated the security breach at this time,” Kyle Kennedy, CTO of STEALTHbits Technologies, said in an email. “However; those remediation tools will not bring back customer confidence, brand and or market share lost due to this security breach occurring. I have said this before – remediation is always more expensive than prevention – how many more security breaches will the healthcare industry need to have published before preventative projects are green lighted proactively as opposed to reactively?”

According to Reuters, Mandiant and federal officials told CHS that the people believed to be responsible for the purloined information typically specialize in the theft of “valuable intellectual property, such as medical device and equipment development data.” This incident therefore marks a change in strategy—but one that makes sense given the relative ease of gaining access to such financially attractive information.

Kevin Mandia, Mandiant founder and COO at FireEye, told FOX Business recently that because people generally demand medical records be accessible quickly, security measures often take a backseat within healthcare organizations in general. It’s a concern that the federal government also noted back in April.

“This is another example of the ‘remediation is more expensive than prevention’ roller-coaster all organizations are embracing day-in and day-out on where to spend time, resources and money to secure their organization,” Kennedy said. “Knowing where the most valuable sensitive data and information lies within an organization is paramount to being able to present true business-risk calculation that an organization can react and invest in, to properly reduce risk.”

But yet, healthcare data – particularly in the US – has become highly prized by hackers, especially because the data can be “laundered” in a sense, and passed off as legitimately obtained.

“Data attacks are increasingly being carried out to gain access to information, which can then be used – and re-used again and again – sometimes even for marketing purposes,” David Gibson, vice president at the data governance specialist Varonis, told Infosecurity  earlier this summer. “The irony of this situation is that, although the initial breach is carried out by people operating on the wrong side of the law, once the data is passed along – usually generating money in the process – the recipients are usually unaware of its origins,” he said.

“Obviously, if someone presents you with an intimate database on several tens of thousands of people, you would be suspicious as to its origin, but if the data is only partially revealed, then it will be classed as normal – and permission-based – marketing information,” he added.

Data attacks are increasingly being carried out to gain access to information, which can then be used – and re-used again and again – sometimes even for marketing purposes