Impersonation attacks are attacks where somebody creates a fake profile in a social network that pretends to be you. These attacks are a growing menace and can considerably damage a user's reputation. The aim of this project is to identify ways in which we can detect such attacks in order to better protect the image users have online.

Data we collected on Twitter reveals that besides celebrities, a significant number of normal Twitter users also have their accounts impersonated. A large fraction of these fake impersonator accounts are actually not trying to harm their victims but they just want to create fake accounts that look real and use them in re-tweet or follower scams. Nevertheless, they can still damage indirectly the online image of the victim accounts. We are working hard to design defenses against such attacks and hence protect the online image of users, but we need your help!

Please help us make the web a safer place and contact us in case someone is impersonating you at detectingimpersonators@gmail.com or tweeting to us at @DImpersonators. This would greatly help us understand how to battle this menace.

Please note that you can report impersonators on Twitter at their support page.

Members

Oana Goga
Giridhari Venkatadri
Krishna Gummadi