Related papers: Dismantling Common Internet Services for Ad-Malwar…
A large number of URLs are made public by various platforms for security analysis, archiving, and paste sharing -- such as VirusTotal, URLScan.io, Hybrid Analysis, the Wayback Machine, and RedHunt. These services may unintentionally expose…
This paper performs a large-scale study of dependency chains in the web, to find that around 50% of first-party websites render content that they did not directly load. Although the majority (84.91%) of websites have short dependency chains…
Being able to check whether an online advertisement has been targeted is essential for resolving privacy controversies and implementing in practice data protection regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and COPPA. In this paper we describe the…
The intrusiveness and the increasing invasiveness of online advertising have, in the last few years, raised serious concerns regarding user privacy and Web usability. As a reaction to these concerns, we have witnessed the emergence of a…
Searching accounts for one of the most frequently performed computations over the Internet as well as one of the most important applications of outsourced computing, producing results that critically affect users' decision-making behaviors.…
Android-based smart devices are exponentially growing, and due to the ubiquity of the Internet, these devices are globally connected to the different devices/networks. Its popularity, attractive features, and mobility make malware creator…
The online advertising market has recently reached the 500 billion dollar mark. To accommodate the need to match a user with the highest bidder at a fraction of a second, it has moved towards a complex, automated and often opaque model that…
In today's world, we are performing our maximum work through the Internet, i.e., online payment, data transfer, etc., per day. More than thousands of users are connecting. So, it's essential to provide security to the user. It is necessary…
In cybersecurity, allow lists play a crucial role in distinguishing safe websites from potential threats. Conventional methods for compiling allow lists, focusing heavily on website popularity, often overlook infrequently visited legitimate…
Online advertising is currently the greatest source of revenue for many Internet giants. The increased number of specialized websites and modern profiling techniques, have all contributed to an explosion of the income of ad brokers from…
Tor hidden services allow running Internet services while protecting the location of the servers. Their main purpose is to enable freedom of speech even in situations in which powerful adversaries try to suppress it. However, providing…
The domain name system (DNS) that maps alphabetic names to numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses plays a foundational role for Internet communications. By default, DNS queries and responses are exchanged in unencrypted plaintext, and…
Template detection and content extraction are two of the main areas of information retrieval applied to the Web. They perform different analyses over the structure and content of webpages to extract some part of the document. However, their…
Data protection is the process of securing sensitive information from being corrupted, compromised, or lost. A hyperconnected network, on the other hand, is a computer networking trend in which communication occurs over a network. However,…
Malwares are continuously growing in sophistication and numbers. Over the last decade, remarkable progress has been achieved in anti-malware mechanisms. However, several pressing issues (e.g., unknown malware samples detection) still need…
Website accessibility is essential for inclusiveness and regulatory compliance. Although third-party advertisements (ads) are a vital revenue source for free web services, they introduce significant accessibility challenges. Leasing a…
Websites use third-party ads and tracking services to deliver targeted ads and collect information about users that visit them. These services put users' privacy at risk, and that is why users' demand for blocking these services is growing.…
Both domain names and entire websites are increasingly frequently treated as assets, the value of which can be appraised. The objective of the present thesis was to verify the credibility of domain name appraisals obtained using generally…
The exponential growth of the web and its benefits can be attributed largely to its open model where anyone with internet connection can access information on the web for free. This has created unprecedented opportunities for various…
Targeted advertising remains an important part of the free web browsing experience, where advertisers' targeting and personalization algorithms together find the most relevant audience for millions of ads every day. However, given the wide…