An analysis of socware cascades in online social networks
Ting-Kai Huang, Md. Sazzadur Rahman, Harsha V. Madhyastha, Michalis Faloutsos, Bruno Ribeiro · 2013
Online social networks (OSNs) have become a popular new vector for distributing malware and spam, which we refer to as socware. Unlike email spam, which is sent by spammers directly to intended victims, socware cascades through OSNs as compromised users spread it to their friends. In this paper, we analyze data from the walls of roughly 3 million Facebook users over five months, with the goal of developing a better understanding of socware cascades.