Privacy and Security Issues in Online Social Networks

Shaukat Ali,Naveed Islam,Ikram Din,Joel Rodrigues,Mohsen Guizani,Azhar Rauf

doi:10.3390/fi10120114

Abstract

The advent of online social networks (OSN) has transformed a common passive reader into a content contributor. It has allowed users to share information and exchange opinions, and also express themselves in online virtual communities to interact with other users of similar interests. However, OSN have turned the social sphere of users into the commercial sphere. This should create a privacy and security issue for OSN users. OSN service providers collect the private and sensitive data of their customers that can be misused by data collectors, third parties, or by unauthorized users. In this paper, common security and privacy issues are explained along with recommendations to OSN users to protect themselves from these issues whenever they use social media.

Highlights

Social media are a source of communication between the data owner and viewers for online communications that create virtual communities using online social networks (OSN) [1]
The following questions were asked of the participants: Question: Do you share your personal information on the OSN?
Social media have a number of advantages, but along with these benefits, OSNs have raised some issues related to them

Summary

Introduction

Social media are a source of communication between the data owner (data generator) and viewers (end users) for online communications that create virtual communities using online social networks (OSN) [1]. A social network is a social graph that represents a relationship among users, organizations, and their social activities. These users, organizations, groups, etc., are the nodes, and the relationships between the users, organizations, groups are the edges of the graph. An OSN is an online platform used by end users to create social networks or relationships with other people that have similar views, interests, activities, and/or real-life connections [2]. A large number of different types of social-networking services are available in the current online space. The following are some of the common features in social-networking sites [2,3]:

Objectives

Results

Conclusion