Security risks:threats & rewards in social media

In the last decade, without any doubt, social media i.e. social network platforms that are mainly created in order to interact with each other such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, Myspace, Blogs, YouTube, or any user generated content websites gained huge access in public daily life including individuals and organizations. These social network platforms, especially Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, were grown in such fast pace manner that even the big companies including Microsoft, Google, etc. has changed their strategies, and adapted social network platforms very well. That was the time when people, and small organizations who did not have platform for user generated content, had to pay fee to upload their content over Internet. Most of small companies were using privately purchased platform to distribute and share their content; whereas, individuals were limited to post their contents; Emails & IMs were used frequently to share their text, pictures, videos, etc. By the year 2004, freely/ free social network platforms became so common/easy to use and were hugely successful. Platforms were able to provide users to share content quite easily. Small businesses started using social network to promote their business. Veterans were easily connected with their users & followers to provide help & information they are looking for. Upon such rapid growth of these social media platforms; benefits, rewards & opportunities are uncountable, however, it also came with risks and security issues. This research is limited, however it provides valuable information presented in scientific articles in digital libraries. There was total of 214 articles found related to research topic. By refining results, number of articles were reduced to 30 which were selected for actual research using SLR steps. The results were summarized in tabular format and answers the research question in discussion chapter which can be helpful to existing social network platforms, their operators and users.