diff --git a/misc/cronjobs/social_data/update_social_data.pl b/misc/cronjobs/social_data/update_social_data.pl
index 58e3dc0696..bee3f8090e 100755
--- a/misc/cronjobs/social_data/update_social_data.pl
+++ b/misc/cronjobs/social_data/update_social_data.pl
@@ -5,14 +5,22 @@ use Modern::Perl;
 use Koha::Script -cron;
 use C4::Context;
 use C4::SocialData;
+use URI;
 
-my $url = C4::Context->preference( "Babeltheque_url_update" );
-my $output_dir = qq{/tmp};
-my $output_filepath = qq{$output_dir/social_data.csv};
-system( qq{/bin/rm -f $output_filepath} );
-system( qq{/bin/rm -f $output_dir/social_data.csv.bz2} );
-system( qq{/usr/bin/wget $url -O $output_dir/social_data.csv.bz2 } ) == 0 or die "Can't get bz2 file from url $url ($?)";
-system( qq{/bin/bunzip2 $output_dir/social_data.csv.bz2 } ) == 0 or die "Can't extract bz2 file ($?)";
+my $syspref_value = C4::Context->preference("Babeltheque_url_update");
+my $url           = URI->new($syspref_value);
 
+#NOTE: Both HTTP and HTTPS URLs are instances of the URI::http class
+if ( $url && ref $url && $url->isa('URI::http') ) {
+    my $output_dir      = qq{/tmp};
+    my $output_filepath = qq{$output_dir/social_data.csv};
+    system(qq{/bin/rm -f $output_filepath});
+    system(qq{/bin/rm -f $output_dir/social_data.csv.bz2});
+    system( '/usr/bin/wget', $url, '-O', "$output_dir/social_data.csv.bz2" ) == 0
+        or die "Can't get bz2 file from url $url ($?)";
+    system(qq{/bin/bunzip2 $output_dir/social_data.csv.bz2 }) == 0 or die "Can't extract bz2 file ($?)";
 
-C4::SocialData::update_data $output_filepath;
+    C4::SocialData::update_data $output_filepath;
+} else {
+    print "$syspref_value is not a HTTP URL. Aborting.\n";
+}