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Smishing, also known as SMS phishing, is a type of fraudulent communication in which an attacker disguises SMS communications to deceive a target into providing their sensitive data. Smishing attacks use a variety of tactics; however, they…
Sex work, or the exchange of sexual services for money or goods, is ubiquitous across eras and cultures. However, the practice of selling sex is often hidden due to stigma and the varying legal status of sex work. Online platforms that sex…
Approximately 400,000 youth in the US are living in foster care due to experiences with abuse or neglect at home. For multiple reasons, these youth often don't receive adequate social support from those around them. Despite technology's…
Telegram, initially a messaging app, has evolved into a platform where users can interact with various services through programmable applications, bots. Bots provide a wide range of uses, from moderating groups, helping with online…
In this work, we are focusing on a new and yet uncovered way for malicious apps to gain profit. They claim to be dating apps. However, their sole purpose is to lure users into purchasing premium/VIP services to start conversations with…
Over the years, use of smartphones has come to dominate several areas, improving our lives, offering us convenience, and reshaping our daily work circumstances. Beyond traditional use for communication, they are used for many peripheral…
Human trafficking is a widespread and compound social, economic, and human rights issue occurring in every region of the world. While there have been an increasing number of anti-human trafficking works from the Operations Research and…
Almost all of us have multiple cyberspace identities, and these {\em cyber}alter egos are networked together to form a vast cyberspace social network. This network is distinct from the world-wide-web (WWW), which is being queried and mined…
Here we consider the communications tactics appropriate for a group of agents that need to "swarm" together in a highly adversarial environment. Specfically, whilst they need to cooperate by exchanging information with each other about…
The lead marketing ecosystem enables collection, sale, and use of personal data submitted via web forms to deliver personalized quotes in high-value verticals such as insurance. Despite its scale and sensitivity of the collected data, this…
Romance-baiting scams have become a major source of financial and emotional harm worldwide. These operations are run by organized crime syndicates that traffic thousands of people into forced labor, requiring them to build emotional…
Recent developments in the mobile app industry have resulted in various types of mobile apps, each targeting a different need and a specific audience. Consequently, users access distinct apps to complete their information need tasks. This…
Phone scams remain a difficult problem to tackle due to the combination of protocol limitations, legal enforcement challenges and advances in technology enabling attackers to hide their identities and reduce costs. Scammers use social…
With its critical role in business and service delivery through mobile devices, SMS (Short Message Service) has long been abused for spamming, which is still on the rise today possibly due to the emergence of A2P bulk messaging. The effort…
Targeted advertising has transformed the marketing landscape for a wide variety of businesses, by creating new opportunities for advertisers to reach prospective customers by delivering personalised ads, using an infrastructure of a number…
Since the onset of the COVID-19's global spread we have been following the debate around contact tracing apps -- the tech-enabled response to the pandemic. As corporations, academics, governments, and civil society discuss the right way to…
Illicit massage businesses (IMBs) masquerade as legitimate massage parlors while facilitating commercial sex and human trafficking. Law enforcement must identify these businesses within a dense population of lawful establishments, but…
This study explores the widespread perception that personal data, such as email addresses, may be shared or sold without informed user consent, investigating whether these concerns are reflected in actual practices of popular online…
The use of short text messages in social media and instant messaging has become a popular communication channel during the last years. This rising popularity has caused an increment in messaging threats such as spam, phishing or malware as…
In the past year, a new spamming scheme has emerged: sexual extortion messages requiring payments in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, also known as sextortion. This scheme represents a first integration of the use of cryptocurrencies by members…