Fusing Behavioral Projection Models for Identity Theft Detection in Online Social Networks

Abstract

We aim at exploiting users’ coarse behavioral records for identity theft detection in online services. We concentrate on this issue in online social networks (OSNs) that users’ behavioral records usually consist of multiple dimensional behavior data. The behavioral records in each dimension are possibly coarse and insufficient for effectively modeling users’ behavioral patterns. In this paper, we investigate whether there is a complementary effect among different dimensions of records for modeling users’ behavioral patterns. We focus on three typical dimensions of behaviors in OSNs, i.e., offline check-ins, online tip-postings, and social contacts. We devise the dedicated behavior models based on each dimension of data, i.e., users’ behavioral projection models. Then, by examining all feasible logical combinations of them, we find the optimal ones for two real-world data sets: Foursquare and Yelp. Notably, we analyze the potential correlation between customized demand and optimal logical fusion scheme. As an insightful result, we find that the correlation is independent of the specific data. This study would give the cybersecurity community new insights into the possibility and methodology to achieve a customized identity theft detection in OSNs by integrating multiple behavioral projection models.