Detection of Fake and Cloned Profiles in Online Social Networks

Abstract

Online Social Network (OSN) is a platform to build social relations with others who share similar personal or career interests or real-life connections. OSNs allow users to share their views, likes, comments, opinions, photos, videos etc with other users in the network. As the popularity of OSNs are increasing day by day, the threats related to them are also increasing. Fake and Cloned profiles have become a severe security issue in social networks. Profile Cloning is an act of identity theft of existing user's profile credentials to create duplicate profiles. This cloned profile is misused for defaming legitimate profile owner. They even launch phishing attacks, harvest sensitive user information, stalking or spread viruses to other users. Fake profiles are created to carry out malicious activities and online social crimes. So, a detection method has been proposed which can effectively detect cloned and fake profiles in Online Social Networks.

Keywords: Online Social Network (OSN), Fake Profiles, Profile Cloning