Identification of Fake Profiles in Online Social Networks (OSNs)

Abstract

The technologies are growing at an enormous rate these days. The communication amongst people is heavily influenced by OSNs i.e, the Online Social Networks. With the introduction of smartphones in almost everyone’s hands, thoughts of political, professional and personal influence are shared online immensely on each and every day. People make new friends, keep in touch with the old ones, relatives, neighbors and post almost everything on social networks online, that they do in their daily lives to keep them updated. But due to this increase in online networking, they sometimes find themselves in trouble due to faking of their social media profile which gives rise to many problems. And this online profile impersonation is increasing heavily on different social media platforms in present day scenario. Thus, Online Social Networks have sounded attractive for cyber criminals, who always try to exploit their vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Fake accounts have generally become basic threat which is used in different online cyber attacks. By using fake profiles, attackers can influence and radicalize the crowd present online, set false political agenda on trending issues, spread spams, bully someone intentionally, etc. These posts by fake users lead to genuine users left with more irrelevant knowledge and unnecessary content while surfing. Various research have found that almost approx 30% profiles in OSNs like twitter, Facebook, are false ones. Therefore, the Identification of Fake Profiles in OSNs (Online Social Networks) leads to remedy with the use of frameworks.