Employee social media oversharing puts businesses at risk, expert warns

More than 80% of employees overshare on social media, potentially exposing themselves and their employers to cyber threats, according to research highlighted by Managed247.

The IT services provider warned that information shared through employees’ personal accounts could help criminals understand an organisation and create more convincing targeted scams.

John Pepper, CEO and founder at Managed247, said: “Employees can unintentionally give criminals a lot of useful information about themselves and the people they work with.

“When those details are brought together, it can make it much easier for someone to convincingly impersonate a colleague or senior member of staff.

“Businesses should think about employees’ digital footprints as part of their wider cybersecurity strategy and make sure staff understand what information could potentially be useful to someone outside the organisation.”

More than 220,000 fraud-risk cases were recorded on the UK National Fraud Database during the first half of 2026, according to Cifas, with identity fraud accounting for 59% of cases.

Managed247 said publicly available details including employees’ names, job titles, colleagues, clients and professional responsibilities could be used to impersonate staff or senior leaders and make fraudulent requests.

Social media posts about new roles, projects or business relationships could also provide information for social engineering attacks designed to appear as though they have come from a legitimate colleague, customer or supplier.