There are no free iPads: An analysis of survey scams as a business

Jason W. Clark; Damon McCoy

There are no free iPads: An analysis of survey scams as a business

Jason W. Clark, Damon McCoy

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review

Abstract

Spam is a profit-fueled enterprise and cyber-criminals are focusing more of their efforts at growing Online Social Networks, such as Facebook. One of the common methods of monetizing Online Social Network spam is to entice users to click on links promising free gift cards and iPads. However, these links actually lead to ad networks that bombard users with surveys in an attempt to collect personal and contact information that they will sell to other marketers. To date, we lack a solid understanding of this enterprise’s full-structure. In this paper, we examined the survey scam process to determine the affiliates/sponsors that are behind this lucrative scam by performing an analysis of five months of Facebook spam data. We provide the first empirical study and analysis of survey scams and demonstrate how to determine which ad networks are sponsoring this spam.

Original language	English (US)
State	Published - 2013
Event	6th USENIX Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats, LEET 2013 - Washington, United States Duration: Aug 12 2013 → …

Conference

Conference	6th USENIX Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats, LEET 2013
Country/Territory	United States
City	Washington
Period	8/12/13 → …

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computer Science Applications
Information Systems
Artificial Intelligence

Cite this

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title = "There are no free iPads: An analysis of survey scams as a business",

abstract = "Spam is a profit-fueled enterprise and cyber-criminals are focusing more of their efforts at growing Online Social Networks, such as Facebook. One of the common methods of monetizing Online Social Network spam is to entice users to click on links promising free gift cards and iPads. However, these links actually lead to ad networks that bombard users with surveys in an attempt to collect personal and contact information that they will sell to other marketers. To date, we lack a solid understanding of this enterprise{\textquoteright}s full-structure. In this paper, we examined the survey scam process to determine the affiliates/sponsors that are behind this lucrative scam by performing an analysis of five months of Facebook spam data. We provide the first empirical study and analysis of survey scams and demonstrate how to determine which ad networks are sponsoring this spam.",

author = "Clark, {Jason W.} and Damon McCoy",

note = "Funding Information: We thank Harsha Madhyastha and Sazzadur Rahman for their help with this project. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant 1237076. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2013 USENIX. All rights reserved.; 6th USENIX Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats, LEET 2013 ; Conference date: 12-08-2013",

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N1 - Funding Information: We thank Harsha Madhyastha and Sazzadur Rahman for their help with this project. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant 1237076. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors. Publisher Copyright: © 2013 USENIX. All rights reserved.

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Spam is a profit-fueled enterprise and cyber-criminals are focusing more of their efforts at growing Online Social Networks, such as Facebook. One of the common methods of monetizing Online Social Network spam is to entice users to click on links promising free gift cards and iPads. However, these links actually lead to ad networks that bombard users with surveys in an attempt to collect personal and contact information that they will sell to other marketers. To date, we lack a solid understanding of this enterprise’s full-structure. In this paper, we examined the survey scam process to determine the affiliates/sponsors that are behind this lucrative scam by performing an analysis of five months of Facebook spam data. We provide the first empirical study and analysis of survey scams and demonstrate how to determine which ad networks are sponsoring this spam.

AB - Spam is a profit-fueled enterprise and cyber-criminals are focusing more of their efforts at growing Online Social Networks, such as Facebook. One of the common methods of monetizing Online Social Network spam is to entice users to click on links promising free gift cards and iPads. However, these links actually lead to ad networks that bombard users with surveys in an attempt to collect personal and contact information that they will sell to other marketers. To date, we lack a solid understanding of this enterprise’s full-structure. In this paper, we examined the survey scam process to determine the affiliates/sponsors that are behind this lucrative scam by performing an analysis of five months of Facebook spam data. We provide the first empirical study and analysis of survey scams and demonstrate how to determine which ad networks are sponsoring this spam.

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There are no free iPads: An analysis of survey scams as a business

Abstract

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ASJC Scopus subject areas

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