Modern Threats in Online Social Networks, Privacy Solutions offered by OSN Providers and Commercial Solutions

Abstract

Online social networks (OSNs) have significantly increased in popularity over the past few years due to the rapidly developing and continually evolving technology. The main driver of this trend is the potential of OSNs to give people a channel for connection with their loved ones as well as the opportunity to make new acquaintances, engage in conversation with like-minded people, and exchange ideas and thoughts. Given the vast amount of information shared on social networks and how quickly this information spreads, attackers are drawn to it wanting to exploit the information to harm others while also gaining personal advantage. Security and privacy issues are brought up by the user's shared information, especially when the user uploads sensitive media like photos, videos, and audio. The attacker can nefariously use shared information for improper ends, which could result in the user suffering substantial damage. Attackers target social networks for their own advantage for a variety of reasons, including impersonation for amusement or fraud, money theft via getting a credit card and financial information illegally, theft of other personal information, and other ways to illegally obtain information of users. This paper, written with the general reader in mind, will provide a review of modern security threats on OSNs and existing solutions to privacy risks and security threats provided by OSN platform providers and commercial solutions.