2020/01/16 by Aviad Elyashar, Sagi Uziel, Elyashar, Aviad +5
Computer Science · #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection #Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI) #Spam and Phishing Detection
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2001.05668
openalex publication_date 2020/01/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Online social networks (OSNs) are ubiquitous attracting millions of users all\nover the world. Being a popular communication media OSNs are exploited in a\nvariety of cyber attacks. In this article, we discuss the Chameleon attack\ntechnique, a new type of OSN-based trickery where malicious posts and profiles\nchange the way they are displayed to OSN users to conceal themselves before the\nattack or avoid detection. Using this technique, adversaries can, for example,\navoid censorship by concealing true content when it is about to be inspected;\nacquire social capital to promote new content while piggybacking a trending\none; cause embarrassment and serious reputation damage by tricking a victim to\nlike, retweet, or comment a message that he wouldn't normally do without any\nindication for the trickery within the OSN. An experiment performed with closed\nFacebook groups of sports fans shows that (1) Chameleon pages can pass by the\nmoderation filters by changing the way their posts are displayed and (2)\nmoderators do not distinguish between regular and Chameleon pages. We list the\nOSN weaknesses that facilitate the Chameleon attack and propose a set of\nmitigation guidelines.\n