Enhancing Online Security: Detection of Fake Profiles on Instagram Using GBM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32628/IJSRST25122234Keywords:
Fake Profile Detection, Instagram Security, Gradient Boosting Machine, Machine Learning, Online Fraud Prevention, Social Media SecurityAbstract
The rise of fake profiles on Instagram poses a significant threat to online security, leading to privacy breaches, misinformation, and fraudulent activities. Existing detection methods often suffer from low accuracy and struggle to adapt to evolving fraudulent techniques, highlighting the need for a more robust solution. This research addresses this gap by leveraging Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM) to detect fake profiles based on key features such as engagement metrics, profile activity, and authenticity indicators. A dataset of real and fake profiles is collected and pre-processed, followed by the implementation of GBM for classification. Experimental results demonstrate that GBM outperforms traditional machine learning models in terms of accuracy, precision, and recall. The findings highlight the potential of GBM in strengthening online security by minimizing fake account proliferation. Future work will explore deep learning models and real-time detection approaches to further enhance accuracy and adaptability.
Downloads
References
S. Adikari and K. Dutta, “Identifying Fake Profiles in Online Social Networks,” in Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Computing, pp. 101–108, 2014.
G. Stringhini, C. Kruegel, and G. Vigna, “Detecting Spammers on Social Networks,” in Proceedings of the 26th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), pp. 1–10, 2010.
A. Romanov, A. Semenov, O. Mazhelis, and J. Veijalainen, “Challenges in Fake Account Detection on Social Media,” in Journal of Cybersecurity Research, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 45–58, 2019.
A. Wang and J. Kim, “Malicious User Detection in Social Networks: A Machine Learning Approach,” in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 15, pp. 3421–3434, 2020.
T. Stein, E. Chen, and K. Mangla, “Facebook Security and Privacy: A Comprehensive Analysis,” in Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Privacy and Security, pp. 89–102, 2011.
S. Kiruthiga, “The Role of Trending Memes and Hashtags in Social Media Manipulation,” in International Journal of Data Science and AI, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 205–219, 2021.
Y. Zhang, H. Li, and W. Chen, “Hybrid Machine Learning Models for Fake Profile Detection,” in Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 198, p. 116899, 2022.
D. Brown and S. Patel, “AI and Social Media Security: Detecting Fake Accounts with ML,” in Cybersecurity Journal, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 10–20, 2018.
Y. Li, H. Xu, and P. Wang, “Gradient Boosting for Fake Profile Detection in Online Social Networks,” in Neural Networks Journal, vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 123–131, 2023.
A. M. Ajith and M. Nirmala, “Fake Accounts and Clone Profiles Identification on Social Media Using Machine Learning Algorithms,” in International Journal of Scientific Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 551, 2022. Print ISSN: 2395-1990 | Online ISSN: 2394-4099. DOI: 10.32628/IJSRSET2293158.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 International Journal of Scientific Research in Science, Engineering and Technology

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.