AN INTELLIGENT AND NOVEL ALGORITHM FOR SECURING VULNERABLE USERS OF ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORK

Abstract

The last few years have witnessed a very fast-paced growth in the user base and activities of Online Social Networks (OSN). Their growth is attributed to the trust that they have received from people. People engage in social networks to make friends, chat, upload and like photos, update their status, and post comments. The use of social networks causes users to think less about the related security and privacy concerns in terms of OSNs. Trusting social networks leads to serious privacy concerns. Users disclose their information voluntarily, not knowing who exactly is going to access or use their data. They are less concerned about how safe their private information is, as they are more interested in meeting different people from across the globe. Their desire to connect with their family, friends, and virtual friends is apparent from their use of OSNs. The widespread use of social networks has also given rise to widespread impersonation. It is difficult to find a feasible solution to help counteract the negative consequences of this problem. This paper discusses the reasons behind information leaks, particularly, the way in which OSNs contribute to the intelligence used by hackers. A number of security measures for organizations are also included in the paper, to help them combat the activities related to leakage of information with respect to OSNs. It also identifies the future direction in terms of in-depth research in the fields by establishing a culture of security and implementing behavioral change. The Description Logic Rule Generation algorithm is proposed in the paper to be able to find and analyze the nature of vulnerabilities and attackers. The algorithm identifies vulnerable users on the basis of a sharing threshold. The users are removed in case they cross the threshold values. The paper also presents the security analysis of results of the OSNs popularity among users.