TY - JOUR
T1 - Dating with Scambots
T2 - Understanding the Ecosystem of Fraudulent Dating Applications
AU - Hu, Yangyu
AU - Wang, Haoyu
AU - Zhou, Yajin
AU - Guo, Yao
AU - Li, Li
AU - Luo, Bingxuan
AU - Xu, Fangren
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2004-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2021/5/1
Y1 - 2021/5/1
N2 - 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 other (likely fake female) accounts in the app. We call these apps as fraudulent dating apps. This paper performs a systematic study to understand the whole ecosystem of fraudulent dating apps. Specifically, we have proposed a three-phase method to detect them and subsequently comprehend their characteristics via analyzing the existing account profiles. Our observation reveals that most of the accounts are not managed by real persons, but by chatbots based on predefined conversation templates. We also analyze the business model of these apps and reveal that multiple parties are actually involved in the ecosystem, including producers who develop apps, publishers who publish apps to gain profit, and the distribution network that is responsible for distributing apps to end users. Finally, we analyze the impact of them to users (i.e., victims) and estimate the overall revenue. Our work is the first systematic study on fraudulent dating apps, and the results demonstrate the urge for a solution to protect users.
AB - 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 other (likely fake female) accounts in the app. We call these apps as fraudulent dating apps. This paper performs a systematic study to understand the whole ecosystem of fraudulent dating apps. Specifically, we have proposed a three-phase method to detect them and subsequently comprehend their characteristics via analyzing the existing account profiles. Our observation reveals that most of the accounts are not managed by real persons, but by chatbots based on predefined conversation templates. We also analyze the business model of these apps and reveal that multiple parties are actually involved in the ecosystem, including producers who develop apps, publishers who publish apps to gain profit, and the distribution network that is responsible for distributing apps to end users. Finally, we analyze the impact of them to users (i.e., victims) and estimate the overall revenue. Our work is the first systematic study on fraudulent dating apps, and the results demonstrate the urge for a solution to protect users.
KW - Fraud
KW - android
KW - dating app
KW - malware
KW - mobile app
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85070686708
U2 - 10.1109/TDSC.2019.2908939
DO - 10.1109/TDSC.2019.2908939
M3 - 文章
AN - SCOPUS:85070686708
SN - 1545-5971
VL - 18
SP - 1033
EP - 1050
JO - IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
JF - IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
IS - 3
M1 - 8680707
ER -