NFL Draft Via Social Media Offers Insights Into Online Security

For the first time in National Football League history, draft day is going remote and online. Social media will play a big part in that transition, and teams have to work in that world securely.

In recent years, the NFL turned the day its teams pick their stars of tomorrow into as big an event as any regular-season game. Thousands of fans showed up in cities across the country just to see what college kids their favorite teams would tap for their rosters. Coronavirus made that mega-event impossible, so draft war rooms dispersed from Green Bay to L.A. will send in their picks via video conferencing and keep fans updated via Twitter and other platforms.

In this first (and hopefully only) virus-limited NFL draft night, online security is paramount. Not only are teams afraid of being hacked by third parties ranging from plain old troublemakers to gamblers looking for tips, but they also have to consider the worst-case scenario — another NFL franchise trying to snoop into another team’s personnel plans.

The first pick is now hours away, and the cybersecurity firm CRITICALSTART is offering five tips NFL teams can follow to guard against their draft plans being exposed via vulnerable social media and video networks.

The security steps come off as basic, yet sensible:

1. Leverage both strong passwords and multi-factor authentication for meetings channels.
2. Scrutinize every email.
3. If using Zoom, follow corporate best practices.
4. Tightly manage your social media channels.
5. Scrutinize all your communications.

More importantly, the minds behind  CRITICALSTART insist any home internet user can adopt those same ideas for a household network.

With “stay at home” quarantine orders for the Coronavirus still in effect, locked down individuals and families are using social media to contact the outside world at unprecedented levels — and therefore exposing themselves to hacks just like the NFL. They can make those social media hours safer by taking a good look at the same safety guidelines football’s best brains employ tonight.

Featured in Forbes | April 23, 2020