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Fake identities in social media: A case study on the sustainability of the Facebook business model

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Journal of Service Science Research

Abstract

Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ have attracted millions of users in the last years. One of the most widely used social networks, Facebook, recently had an initial public offering (IPO) in May 2012, which was among the biggest in Internet technology. Forprofit and nonprofit organizations primarily use such platforms for target-oriented advertising and large-scale marketing campaigns. Social networks have attracted worldwide attention because of their potential to address millions of users and possible future customers. The potential of social networks is often misused by malicious users who extract sensitive private information of unaware users. One of the most common ways of performing a large-scale data harvesting attack is the use of fake profiles, where malicious users present themselves in profiles impersonating fictitious or real persons. The main goal of this research is to evaluate the implications of fake user profiles on Facebook. To do so, we established a comprehensive data harvesting attack, the social engineering experiment, and analyzed the interactions between fake profiles and regular users to eventually undermine the Facebook business model. Furthermore, privacy considerations are analyzed using focus groups. As a result of our work, we provided a set of countermeasures to increase the awareness of users.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SBA Research, Vienna, Austria

    Katharina Krombholz & Edgar Weippl

  2. Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria

    Dieter Merkl

Authors
  1. Katharina Krombholz
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  2. Dieter Merkl
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  3. Edgar Weippl
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Correspondence to Katharina Krombholz.

Additional information

Katharina Krombholz is researcher and Ph.D. student at SBA Research in Vienna, Austria. She received a master degree in Media Informatics from the Vienna University of Technology. Her research interests include security, privacy, social networks, human-computer interaction and interaction design.

Dieter Merkl is Associate Professor of Applied Computer Science at the Institute of Software Technology and Interactive Systems at the Vienna University of Technology (Austria). His main research interests are in the areas of information retrieval, data mining, and interaction design. He has published more than 140 scientific papers in these areas.

Edgar Weippl is research director of SBA Research and Associate Professor at the Institute of Software Technology and Interactive Systems at the Vienna University of Technology (Austria). His research focuses on applied concepts of IT-security and e-learning.

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Krombholz, K., Merkl, D. & Weippl, E. Fake identities in social media: A case study on the sustainability of the Facebook business model. J Serv Sci Res 4, 175–212 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12927-012-0008-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12927-012-0008-z

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