Social Media Security Research Articles

Understanding the Impact of AI-Generated Deepfakes on Public Opinion, Political Discourse, and Personal Security in Social Media

Understanding the Impact of AI-Generated Deepfakes on Public Opinion, Political Discourse, and Personal Security in Social Media

(In)Security in social media: exploring Israeli and Palestinian narratives

ABSTRACT The persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict profoundly influences the perceptions of both Israelis and Palestinians, shaping successive generations and posing a complex challenge for security scholarship. This article examines these contrasting socially constructed realities through the lens of Securitisation Theory, analysing public social media discourses on Facebook between 1 January 2021 and 29 April 2022 in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. By bridging high-level theorising with empirically driven methodology, the study enriches the understanding of securitisation processes using Balzacq’s framework and engaging with perspectives from Cote, Stritzel, and Vuori, including the active role of target audiences and the complexity of securitisation as a speech act. Through this approach, the research not only advances theoretical insights into Securitisation but also demonstrates that leveraging social media analysis provides both a valuable means of theory testing and a more comprehensive understanding of securitisation dynamics in the Israeli-Palestinian context.

SECURITY IN SOCIAL MEDIA: AWARNESS OF PHISHING ATTACKS TECHNIQUES AND COUNTER MEASURES

As time and technology progresses, the social media security is one of the basic and most important aspects to consider when browsing the internet.Nowadays all people using social media mostly, using social media is widely spread among different age groups to meet several purposes including education, entertainment, or even pursue a research. With the increase of using smartphones and social media, the cyber security threats also increased. The most widely- perpetrated form of social media attacks is phishing; it is used to gather sensitive personal and professional information such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, user logins and passwords, as well as other information entered through a web site or online sources. Furthermore, many users of different age groups and mainly the old age people have been exposed to social media security violations most times due to a lack of awareness about phishing attacks and how to address with them. Our paper focuses primarily to make people of all age group aware of exposure to this type of attack while using social media networks. Key Words: Cyber security, Social media, Phishing attack

Beyond Word-Based Model Embeddings: Contextualized Representations for Enhanced Social Media Spam Detection

As social media platforms continue their exponential growth, so do the threats targeting their security. Detecting disguised spam messages poses an immense challenge owing to the constant evolution of tactics. This research investigates advanced artificial intelligence techniques to significantly enhance multiplatform spam classification on Twitter and YouTube. The deep neural networks we use are state-of-the-art. They are recurrent neural network architectures with long- and short-term memory cells that are powered by both static and contextualized word embeddings. Extensive comparative experiments precede rigorous hyperparameter tuning on the datasets. Results reveal a profound impact of tailored, platform-specific AI techniques in combating sophisticated and perpetually evolving threats. The key innovation lies in tailoring deep learning (DL) architectures to leverage both intrinsic platform contexts and extrinsic contextual embeddings for strengthened generalization. The results include consistent accuracy improvements of more than 10–15% in multisource datasets, unlocking actionable guidelines on optimal components of neural models, and embedding strategies for cross-platform defense systems. Contextualized embeddings like BERT and ELMo consistently outperform their noncontextualized counterparts. The standalone ELMo model with logistic regression emerges as the top performer, attaining exceptional accuracy scores of 90% on Twitter and 94% on YouTube data. This signifies the immense potential of contextualized language representations in capturing subtle semantic signals vital for identifying disguised spam. As emerging adversarial attacks exploit human vulnerabilities, advancing defense strategies through enhanced neural language understanding is imperative. We recommend that social media companies and academic researchers build on contextualized language models to strengthen social media security. This research approach demonstrates the immense potential of personalized, platform-specific DL techniques to combat the continuously evolving threats that threaten social media security.

Big Data and Security: A Review of Social Media Risks and Insights for Indonesia

This article explores the intricacies of big data and its relationship with security, with the aim of mitigating potential security threats arising from social media platforms. The subsequent aim entails generating optimal strategies to propose to governmental entities for enhancing their efficacy in addressing security concerns pertaining to social media and its intersection with security. The present study commences by conducting a comprehensive survey of existing literature pertaining to social media security concerns and corresponding strategies for mitigating these issues. After conducting a comprehensive investigation, several significant discoveries were made and subsequently presented to aid stakeholders in better mitigating social media security risks. Numerous nations exist wherein the dynamics of government practices lack a robust social media security policy, and they exhibit skepticism towards endeavors aimed at constructing an efficient plan to mitigate social media security concerns. This study provides an overview of the existing arguments found in the literature and presents recommendations aimed at mitigating concerns related to social media security and technology. The present study also draws upon a comprehensive body of literature to identify and condense practical lessons. Further investigation and scholarly examination are necessary to explore strategies and pragmatic perspectives aimed at mitigating the potential risks associated with social media for the Indonesian government.

First Six Months of War from Ukrainian topic and sentiment analysis

Through technological advancements as well as due to societal trends and developments, social media became an active part and a catalysator of the ongoing conflicts and wars carried out in the physical environment. A direct example on this behalf are the cyber/information operations currently conducted in conjunction with the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war. Due to such operations packaged in social media manipulation mechanisms like disinformation and misinformation using techniques such as controversies, fake news, and deep fakes, a high degree of confusion and uncertainty surrounds the events happened and users’ behaviour and beliefs. These operations also impact the civilians directly affected in the battlefield or their dear and known ones. To tackle this issue, currently limited scientific and objective effort is dedicated in this direction due to, e.g., data, strategic, and emotional implications. It is then the aim of this research to capture the main topics discussed and the feeling expressed by Ukrainian Telegram users on the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022 using a Data Science approach by building a series of Machine Learning models based on multi-channel data collected in the first six of months of war. Accordingly, this research directly aims to contribute to efforts on understanding real discourses and dynamics involved in the ongoing conflict through direct resources, producing and sustaining social media security awareness, and building resilience to social media manipulation campaigns using AI.

Global research performance on social media security: a bibliometric visualization analysis

PurposeThis study concentrates on assessing the research productivity in the domain of social media security in the past decades. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric review on social media using various bibliometric indicators.Design/methodology/approachA total of 8,121 scientific publications were retrieved from Scopus database from period 1998 to 2021 using associated keyword search. This study also used VOSviewer© tool to evaluate the network visualisation.FindingsThe result of this study revealed that there is a steady growth of annual publications except for the years 2015 and 2016. A total of 8,121 scientific publications and 80,454 total citations were found with 11.2 average citations per publication. The USA, China and India were top productive countries in terms of publishing research in the field; Chinese Academy of Sciences secured top position with 126 publications in highly productive organisation in the domain. The lecture notes in computer science from Springer Nature received a highly produced title with 553 publications and 4,453 total citations. For co-occurrence of author’s keywords, network visualisation analysis revealed that “Social Media”, “Social Network”, “Security”, “Privacy” and “Trust” found maximum occurrence in the domain of social media security.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides comprehensive research status of social media security by performing a bibliometric analysis. The findings of this study will help relevant researchers to understand the research trend, pursue scientific collaborators and enhance research topic preferences.Originality/valueThe rareness of this study, detailed bibliometric analysis on the domain of social media security, is proven using numerous bibliometric indicators and application of VOSviewer in the domain.

Social Media Manipulation Deep Learning based Disinformation Detection

The rapid grow and use of different social platforms enhanced communication between different entities and their audiences plus the transformation through digitalization of existing, e.g., ideas and businesses, or the creation of new ones fully existing or depending on this digital environment. Nevertheless, next to these promising aspects, social media is a vulnerable digital environment where a diverse plethora of cyber incidents are planned and executed engaging a diverse range of targets. Among these, social media manipulation through threats like disinformation and misinformation produce a broad span of effects that cross digital borders into the human realm by influencing and altering human believes, behaviour, and attitudes towards specific ideas, institutions, or people. To tackle these issues, existing academic, social platforms, dedicated organizations, and institutions efforts exist for building specific advanced and intelligent solutions for detecting and preventing them. Regardless, these efforts embed defender’s perspective and are focused locally, at target level, without being designed to fit a broader agenda of producing and/or strengthening social media security awareness. On this behalf, this research proposes a deep learning-based disinformation detection solution for facilitating and/or enhancing social media security awareness in respect to offender’s perspective. To achieve this objective, a Data Science approach is taken based on the Design Science Research methodology, and the results obtained are discussed with a keen on further field developments regarding intelligent, transparent, and responsible solutions countering social manipulation through realistic participation and contribution of different stakeholders from different disciplines.

Analysis of Higher Education Students’ Awareness in Indonesia on Personal Data Security in Social Media

As time goes by, information and communication technology continue to advance. Since the pandemic, the need for information and communication technology has risen to aid us in working and studying from home. One of the forms of information and communication technology is social media. Social media is where users can connect with other users in different regions, upload content as images or videos, express themselves freely, and get responses or reactions from other users (likes and comments). However, behind all those, social media can also be a place full of threats towards the personal data of its users. This study aims to analyze the awareness of higher education student social media users in the research field of Indonesia regarding personal data security. This research focuses on university students, Indonesia’s largest group of social media users, as the main respondents. The questionnaire questions were distributed online using random and snowball sampling methods for targeting student respondents. In this study, social media users were divided into active users (content creators) and passive users (using social media as a means of entertainment). The results show that active users upload personal data to benefit from it. In contrast, passive users are more aware of the use of personal data on their social media. This research also shows how they secure their data and their behavior on social media.

Social Media Use and Awareness of Privacy Concerns

The usage of social media in our society is prevalent in our daily lives. Although social media usage is at an all time high, the tools and technologies that provide security and protection can be compromised. Users of social media platforms should be made aware of the risks and pitfalls of these applications. Our study identified that users of social media platforms are generally aware of insecurities within the platforms. The researchers determined that the frequency of posting does not cause risks for privacy concerns. Although the users had general awareness and concern, they were heightened after additional information was provided to them in regards to social media security and how personal data is collected and used on social media platforms.

Social Media Security Awareness in Saudi Arabia

With the daily use of social media, the cybersecurity and privacy are challenging for most communities. This research is aimed to explore and evaluate the awareness of cybersecurity in Saudi Arabia. It is also designed to discover how the ordinary users performances in using internet security while using social media. This research employed mixed methods. The researcher sent the online questionnaire to random people who used the social media to participate in this study. At the end of the online survey, one more question was attached to ask participants to involve in the second round of data collection (interview). This research found that social media users' awareness about internet security is different from users based on their gender. In addition, the ways of contact were affecting the reaction of users to share their information with others. The results also indicated that when the level of awareness is high the way of dealing with others is different. This study also confirmed the users' belief in internet security and most of them knew the strengths of internet security enabled them to protect their devices and personal information from outside intruders. Moreover, the findings of this study showed that the users of social media need to give more attention to all types of security threats. The findings of this paper can be used theoretically and practically by identifying the level of security awareness based on social media usage and the purpose of use.

Understanding of Information Security Behavior of Social Media Users Among Millennial Generation

The increasing use of social networks in Indonesia is caused by the increasingly complete internet access facilities carried out by producers of communication service providers. This research aims to explain the information security behavior of the millennial generation of social media users. The population used in this research is the millennial generation. The sample used in this research is the millennial generation. Analysis using the Likert scale method. The results of this study show that social media has a significant and positive influence on social media security among the millennial generation. The results of this study also show that the behavior of the millennial generation in the context of information security is aware that information security is very important to pay attention to. In addition, this finding also shows that the millennial generation realizes that social media plays an important role in the communication and interactions that they undergo and realizes that there is a risk in the information contained in social media. This study suggests the millennial generation to keeps paying attention to information security when using social media.

A systematic literature review on spam content detection and classification.

The presence of spam content in social media is tremendously increasing, and therefore the detection of spam has become vital. The spam contents increase as people extensively use social media, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and E-mail. The time spent by people using social media is overgrowing, especially in the time of the pandemic. Users get a lot of text messages through social media, and they cannot recognize the spam content in these messages. Spam messages contain malicious links, apps, fake accounts, fake news, reviews, rumors, etc. To improve social media security, the detection and control of spam text are essential. This paper presents a detailed survey on the latest developments in spam text detection and classification in social media. The various techniques involved in spam detection and classification involving Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and text-based approaches are discussed in this paper. We also present the challenges encountered in the identification of spam with its control mechanisms and datasets used in existing works involving spam detection.

Cybersecurity Awareness in Online Education: A Case Study Analysis

This study presents to what extent Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University students are knowledgeable about cybersecurity in the distance education process. The survey was conducted with a sample of 517 students from all faculties of the university at the undergraduate, graduate, and PhD levels. Our research study shows that although huge numbers of cyberattacks are occurring around the world, the students did not have any knowledge about cybersecurity and the effects of cyberattacks overall. An analysis of cybersecurity awareness was undertaken by asking questions focused on malicious software, password security, and social media security. Although we live in an age of technology where our entire lives are indexed to the internet through the distance education process, it has been determined that students have a weak cybersecurity awareness. It has been further concluded that cybersecurity education should be given to prevent the students from becoming a victim of cyberattacks, helping them to use the internet more effectively.

AI Empowers Security Threats and Strategies for Cyber Attacks

In the era of big data, artificial intelligence is widely used in computer network technology, which makes the functional and structural layers of computer network system comprehensively optimized. The use of natural language generation, speech recognition and virtual assistants make people's lives easier and faster. At the same time, the application of big data artificial intelligence has effectively strengthened the construction of computer network security system, and realized the high-end, intelligent and automatic operation of computer network. In recent years, major network security incidents have occurred frequently, and network attacks and security threats are everywhere. Security threats in cyberspace include physical infrastructure, network information systems and social media security information. In personal information and property security and so on constitute a serious threat. Strategies that empower artificial intelligence to respond to cyber attacks and security threats have led to significant changes in cyberspace security. The research on coping strategies required by the combination of artificial intelligence and cyberspace security plays a very important role in promoting the development of artificial intelligence and network security.

Measuring user confidence in social media security and privacy

In today’s Information society it is an everyday scenario to be a part of an online community such as social media. Participation has become almost mandatory to the point of acting as a virtual extremity to one’s physical environment. This virtual extremity is the individual’s window to the outside world and vice versa. The process of being a part of social media has become very easy and user friendly where one is only a few private information entries away from communicating and connecting with the rest of the world. From the user’s perspective it may be a small price considering what it is gained from joining an online community, but with the rise of social networking platforms, arise privacy concerns regarding social networking services. It is questionable how many social media users consider the information they upload or post about online whether it’s their location, hobbies, employment places, age or any other private information. How many users actually read security and privacy terms when first registering for a social media account? What private information are individuals comfortable with entering and sharing on social networking sites? More and more loopholes are being found in social media frameworks that may compromise user’s privacy or that can be misused in a way that was not intended by the user. In 2010, the Google CEO Eric Schmidt was even quoted “… If we look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use artificial intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go.” (Snickars, Pelle, Vonderau, 2012). That line alone raised a lot of concerns and questions about how exactly is the information users put online being used.

Ethics, Information Manipulation and Cyber Security in Social Media

Bu çalışmanın amacı, kitle iletişim araçları ile sosyal medyada üretilen ve akışa dahil edilen bilgileri dijital etik ve siber güvenlik stratejileri bağlamında analiz etmektir. Dijital etik ilkeleri, bireylerin yaşam mahremiyetini göz önünde bulunduran normları kapsamaktadır. Siber uzay, bilgisayar ve bilgisayar ağlarına ilişkin bir kavram olmanın yanı sıra insan eliyle üretilen faaliyetler bütününü de içerdiği için, siber uzayda manipülasyon teknikleri önemli bir siber tehdit olarak kullanıcıların karşısına çıkmaktadır. Siber tehditlerle mücadele etmek için ise dijital etik kurallarının geliştirilmesi önem arz etmektedir. Dijital etik kurallarının ihlal edilmesi sonucunda yanlış ve yalan bilginin oluşmasıyla birlikte bireylerin yanlış bilgilendirilmesi söz konusu olmaktadır. Çalışmada, öncelikle bireyleri “aynı olma” paydasında buluşturma amacı güden sosyal medya, Adorno ve Horkheimer’ın kültür endüstrisi kavramı kapsamında değerlendirilmiştir. Bu doğrultuda, manipülatif nitelik taşıyan içerikler, dijital etik ilkeleri bağlamında analiz edilmiştir. Daha sonra, genelde siber uzayda karşılaşılan sosyal medya tehditleri ve özelde ise bilgi manipülasyonu devletlerin uyguladığı siber güvenlik stratejileri bağlamında karşılaştırılmıştır. Netice olarak, bilginin dijital etik ilkelerinden uzaklaştıkça manipülatif niteliğinin arttığı görülmüştür. Bu nedenle siber uzayın tüm aktörlerinin siber etik kurallarının geliştirilmesi ve uygulanabilmesi için etkin olmaları gerektiği tespit edilmiştir.

Cyber-Crimes Issues on Social Media Usage Among Higher Learning Institutions Students in Dar ES Salaam Region, Tanzania

Social media allow people to communicate with others and this has increased online communication. There are numerous risks of attack on the use of internet and cyber criminals across the digital world. Cyber-crimes is the latest and the most sophisticated problem in the digital world. Cybercrime varies from computer fraud, unauthorized hacking, forgery, infringements of privacy, online gambling, propagation of harmful content, phishing, computer viruses, falsification of prostitution, theft, espionage, copyright infringement , financial crimes, sale of illegal articles, pornography, intellectual property crime, e-mail spoofing, cyber defamation and cyber stalking. The study was guided by the following objectives, to establish various forms of cybercrimes performed on social media, to examine the effects of cyber-crimes on the security of social media, to study the impact of cyber-crimes on social media security. The research population was used from the selected higher learning institutions and a sample size of 132 was used. Simple random sampling was used in sampling the respondents. A descriptive statistics analysis was done, comprising the generation of mean and standard deviation. SPSSv16.0 software was used to generate the mean and standard deviation. The findings show that many students share too much information through emails and social media which may pose threats to them. Most organization they have implemented multilayered security mechanisms information security may leak on the social sites. Cyber-bullying has spread widely especially are prone to the practice of cyber-bullying. Security attacks such as hacking, spoofing spamming cyber stalking Trojan, worms, viruses and exposure scams are common through social media, hence the ICT policy and government policy have address such issues. Higher learning institutions need to invest more resources in training students, awareness, research and development, IT security and social media crimes.

When Facebook Is the Internet

Abstract My social media engagement with research interlocutors is shaped by my positionality as a ‘halfie’ anthropologist based abroad who conducts ethnographic research on violence and peacemaking in the Philippines and the diaspora. On the one hand, social media connectivity facilitates certain research processes, networking, activism, and solidarity building. Yet with social media's security issues and amid shifting political tides, such connectivity poses ethical and security risks, resulting in social media-specific ethical concerns. I demonstrate these points through an account of my engagement with Facebook, a ubiquitous platform for communicating among Filipinos. In the process, I reflect on some of the ways in which social media connectivity between researcher and interlocutors reconfigures the relationality, temporality, hierarchies, and affect of the ethnographic ‘field’.

Revealing Social Media Phenomenon in Time of COVID-19 Pandemic for Boosting Start-Up Businesses through Digital Ecosystem

When the world was engulfed by a COVID-19 pandemic crisis, various activities could not be carried out normally. Activities may continue from home during a crisis by the use of a smartphone through the internet, because almost all people have their own smartphone, without requiring additional purchase of hardware. For formal learning, people can take the opportunity to use social media platforms to undertake conversations easily by using smart phones, even tablets. Teenagers or adults who are still studying in higher education institutions can undertake continuous learning for their work assignments. For example, they can use these tools to communicate through social media such as the WhatsApp, Telegram, Zoom, Microsoft Team, and Edmodo apps to connect with friends and lecturers. This research reveals trends of digital social media security and usability in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, such as working from home, establishing a start-up, improving business processes and conducting online business within the digital ecosystem. The result is interesting and there are many uses of social media which have been addressed in this study during the COVID-19 pandemic for business purposes. The various social media platforms have different features that are available for use by subscribers, and also make it easier for people to do business. This is mainly due to the fact that they open up the global market and also make it cheaper to advertise. The government as well as the private sector has been in the forefront when it comes to the use of social media. Maintaining a good online presence is one of the key aspects that determine the success of start-up companies. This is due to the fact that most customers usually rely on the customer reviews in determining the ability of a company to meet the needs of clients. The main reason why most companies set up a customer relations department that is mandated with the responsibility of responding to customer feedback on various online platforms. On the other hand, the increased use of social media has brought new challenges when it comes to the security of information. Users must, therefore, secure their servers and technology from external and internal threats. One of the strategies used is the use of passwords to log into a portal where each person authorized to access the portal is provided with a password that is unique and known only by the user. The study has covered all these areas in detail including the use of database management systems in an organization or individual.