## 2 Cybersecurity Challenges and Threats in X
### Security Threats in X
#### 2.1.2 Traditional Threats  
In the context of X, there are specific types of traditional threats that involve utilizing various attack methods, such as phishing and malware, to acquire a user's personal details. This information can provide a significant advantage for the attacker, as they can obtain sensitive information such as social security numbers, passwords, and bank information. With this information, the attacker can carry out further crimes such as phishing and identity theft [30]. This section outlines the different traditional threats that can be employed by attackers to access a user's personal information. * Spamming  
Spam attack attackers flood internet users with unsolicited messages (spam). On X, this kind of attack appears to be more successful than traditional spam attacks that use email to spread spam. This is because the social connections between X users can be easily abused. Target users can easily be convinced to read spam information and trust it to be safe. Here, the attacker can somehow obtain communication details about the user and send spam or junk data. Obtaining communication details is not too difficult and can be extracted from legitimate user profiles. A large amount of spam emails sent causes network congestion and the cost of sending emails is mainly borne by the provider of the service and in some cases by the user [31]. * Malware  
This is harmful software made up of Trojan horses, viruses, and worms. X operates by connecting different users' systems. As a result, malware can easily spread from one user's system to another through these connections [32]. X lacks the necessary tools to identify if a URL is dangerous or not. Dangerous URLs can steer users to fake websites which can then transmit malware to their computers and steal their confidential information. Researchers looked at the spread of malware on X and determined which factors played a role in its spread [33]. These factors include features of the social network graph such as the number of nodes, number of connections, highest degree, average shortest distance, and longest distance. The researchers also explained how each factor affects the rate at which malware spreads on X [34]. * Sybil attack and fake profiles  
In a Sybil attack, attackers generate a significant number of fake identities to gain an advantage in distributed and peer-to-peer systems. This type of attack poses a significant threat to X security as it has many users connected as peers in a peer-to-peer network, allowing one entity to control multiple fake identities. By utilizing these fake identities, attackerscan override legitimate users and manipulate reputation values, corrupt information, and outvote legal X users, such as by voting an account as the \"best\" [35]. * Impersonation  
The goal of the attacker is to construct a false profile with the intention of pretending to be a real individual. This type of attack heavily relies on the authentication procedures that users encounter when creating a new account. Such attacks can have severe consequences for the person being impersonated [31]. * Clickjacking  
This is a growing threat to X where attackers conceal harmful software behind the sensitive user interfaces or buttons to steal clicks from customers for malicious purposes. Clickjacking has various forms, but the most well known are Likejacking and Cursorjacking. In Likejacking, the attacker embeds malicious code scripts with X's \"Retweet button\" that appears on the user's profile. Cursorjacking employs the user interface redressing technique to change the position of the cursor, where the attacker replaces the actual cursor with a fake one to direct the user to a malicious website [36]. * Social phishing  
This type of attack involves the attacker attempting to obtain confidential information from a target by using a fake website that appears authentic or by pretending to be someone the target knows.