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Authors: 

Kurt Thomas, University of California, Berkeley, and Twitter; Damon McCoy, George Mason University; Chris Grier, University of California, Berkeley, and International Computer Science Institute; Alek Kolcz, Twitter; Vern Paxson, University of California, Berkeley, and International Computer Science Institute

Abstract: 

As web services such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo now dominate the daily activities of Internet users, cyber criminals have adapted their monetization strategies to engage users within these walled gardens. To facilitate access to these sites, an underground market has emerged where fraudulent accounts – automatically generated credentials used to perpetrate scams, phishing, and malware – are sold in bulk by the thousands. In order to understand this shadowy economy, we investigate the market for fraudulent Twitter accounts to monitor prices, availability, and fraud perpetrated by 27 merchants over the course of a 10-month period. We use our insights to develop a classifier to retroactively detect several million fraudulent accounts sold via this marketplace, 95% of which we disable with Twitter’s help. During active months, the 27 merchants we monitor appeared responsible for registering 10–20% of all accounts later flagged for spam by Twitter, generating $127–459K for their efforts.

Kurt Thomas, University of California, Berkeley, and Twitter

Damon McCoy, George Mason University

Chris Grier, University of California, Berkeley, and International Computer Science Institute

Alek Kolcz, Twitter

Vern Paxson, University of California, Berkeley, and International Computer Science Institute

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {182939,
author = {Kurt Thomas and Damon McCoy and Chris Grier and Alek Kolcz and Vern Paxson},
title = {{Trafficking} Fraudulent Accounts: The Role of the Underground Market in Twitter Spam and Abuse},
booktitle = {22nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 13)},
year = {2013},
isbn = {978-1-931971-03-4},
address = {Washington, D.C.},
pages = {195--210},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity13/technical-sessions/paper/thomas},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = aug
}
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