Related papers: A Large-Scale Study of Telegram Bots
In Online Social Networks (OSN) numerous are the cases in which users create multiple accounts that publicly seem to belong to different people but are actually fake identities of the same person. These fictitious characters can be…
Large language models (LLMs) exhibit impressive capabilities in generating realistic text across diverse subjects. Concerns have been raised that they could be utilized to produce fake content with a deceptive intention, although evidence…
In the past few years, IRC bots, malicious programs which are remotely controlled by the attacker through IRC servers, have become a major threat to the Internet and users. These bots can be used in different malicious ways such as issuing…
The Ethereum blockchain network is a decentralized platform enabling smart contract execution and transactions of Ether (ETH) [1], its designated cryptocurrency. Ethereum is the second most popular cryptocurrency with a market cap of more…
Toxic and antisocial user behavior on social media platforms has received considerable scholarly attention due to its detrimental effects on society. This study takes a holistic perspective on the phenomenon of online toxicity by…
This study presents a review of research on social media bot detection. Social media bots are used by political and criminal actors for mass distribution of political messages, as well as rumors, conspiracy theories, and other forms of…
Social media bot detection has always been an arms race between advancements in machine learning bot detectors and adversarial bot strategies to evade detection. In this work, we bring the arms race to the next level by investigating the…
Social media platforms have become the hubs for various user interactions covering a wide range of needs, including technical support and services related to brands, products, or user accounts. Unfortunately, there has been a recent surge…
Bots, simply defined as accounts controlled by automation, can be used as a weapon for online manipulation and pose a threat to the health of platforms. Researchers have studied online platforms to detect, estimate, and characterize bot…
[WhitePaper] The TelegramScrap tool provides a robust and versatile solution for extracting and analyzing data from Telegram channels and groups, addressing the increasing demand for efficient methods to study digital ecosystems. This white…
Bots are user accounts in social media which are controlled by computer programs. Similar to many other things, they are used for both good and evil purposes. One nefarious use-case for them is to spread misinformation or biased data in the…
With its lenient moderation policies and long-standing associations with potentially unlawful activities, Telegram has become an incubator for problematic content, frequently featuring conspiratorial, hyper-partisan, and fringe narratives.…
Social Media are evolving as a pervasive source of news able to reach a larger audience through their spreading power. The main drawback is given by the presence of malicious accounts, known as social bots, which are often used to diffuse…
A bot is a piece of software that is usually installed on an infected machine without the user's knowledge. A bot is controlled remotely by the attacker under a Command and Control structure. Recent statistics show that bots represent one…
As large language models (LLMs) have proliferated, disturbing anecdotal reports of negative psychological effects, such as delusions, self-harm, and ``AI psychosis,'' have emerged in global media and legal discourse. However, it remains…
Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), speech recognition systems (ASR), and machine learning have enabled the development of intelligent computer programs called chatbots. Many chatbots have been proposed to provide different…
Social bots have recently gained attention in the context of public opinion manipulation on social media platforms. While a lot of research effort has been put into the classification and detection of such (semi-)automated programs, it is…
The idea that social media platforms like Twitter are inhabited by vast numbers of social bots has become widely accepted in recent years. Social bots are assumed to be automated social media accounts operated by malicious actors with the…
We present the first large-scale analysis of 339 cybercriminal activity channels (CACs). Followed by over 23.8 million users, these channels share a wide array of malicious and unethical content with their subscribers, including compromised…
Botnets have come a long way since their inception a few decades ago. Originally toy programs written by network hobbyists, modern-day botnets can be used by cyber criminals to steal billions of dollars from users, corporations, and…