Security and Privacy in Mobile Social Networks

Abstract

Nowadays, people across the world are increasingly turning to social media, and industries are also starting to embrace it to improve and broaden their businesses. Social media represents a virtual community in which people with a shared interest, such as a specific hobby or activity, can interact and socialize with each other. As such, online social networks (or online communities of interest) are formed, uniting their members and providing opportunities of mutual interest.The concept of the social network has, in recent years, also been emerging from information and communication technology perspectives in order to provide efficient communication platforms and computing systems to deliver data services to a variety of social networking applications. This model is especially effective when it also takes a user's current social context into consideration, for example, their physical locations. Recently, with the pervasiveness of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, a mobile version of the social network known as Mobile Social Network (MSN), is booming; MSN is characterized by the use of wireless communication techniques and smartphones. It brings us a ubiquitous and omnipotent communication platform, helping us to stay connected better than ever; however, despite the tremendous benefits of MSN and its applications, MSN still faces many security and privacy challenges. In this talk, I will first introduce cyber security and privacy challenges in mobile social networks. Then, I will focus on one important topic in MSN security and privacy, namely privacy-preserving profile matching (PPM), and its use in various MSN applications. The PPM helps two users compare their personal profiles without disclosing the profiles. Finally, I will present my view of future directions in this research area.