# Privacy and Security Issues in Online Social Networks
## 4 Results and Discussion  
A questionnaire was designed to ask questions from OSN users. Questions were asked from bachelors-level students. The aim of the survey was to know how users treated different types of privacy-related options and whether they knew or cared about these options or not. The participants of the survey were students of bachelor level (sixteen years of education), and they were selected randomly from different classes. The questions that were asked to the various participants of the survey and the responses were disappointing because many of the users even did not use the existing privacy settings offered by service providers. The results of the questionnaire are summarized and shown in Figure 1. The following questions were asked of the participants:  
_Question: Do you share your personal information on the OSN?_  
The answers of 23% participants were YES, in that they do share their personal information on OSNs. The participants were further asked whether they restrict their content and only share with friends, Unfortunately, several of them were even not using the limited data-sharing facility offered by the service providers. For example, the OSN provided the facility to only share contents with friends, friends of friends, or custom sharing. _Question: Do you accept more than one friendship request from the same user?_  
This question was asked to know whether or not users are vulnerable to clone attacks. In a clone attack, the attacker uses theft credentials of an already existing user and creates a new fake profile while using the stolen private information. From participants, 21% responded to this question that YES, they accept the request of users who send a friend request while their friend requests were already been accepted. It does not mean that all these requests are clone attacks, but this shows that these users are vulnerable to clone attacks. _Question: Do you use your real name for your profile?_  
In this case, 46% of users use their real names as their profile names. It shows their trust in the OSN. _Question: Do you use your real picture as a profile photo?_  
Here, 45% of the survey participants responded that they use their real pictures as their profile photos. The photos are somewhat personal data, and if a user keeps the profile picture as a real one, they may share more personal photos on the OSN. _Question: Do you read the terms of use or privacy statement of your OSN?_  
The users were asked about the privacy statement of their OSN, where 54% of them even did not try to read the terms of use of their OSNs. The rest of the participants read some portion of the privacy statement. The privacy statement is too much long, which is almost difficult for a user to read it in a short time. However, most of the users directly accept that without even reading it. Even if users read it and they may not like some sentences, they cannot change it. Thus, they may either accept it or cannot use the services without accepting the terms of use statement. _Question: Do you regularly change your password?_  
Login ID and password are used to log into an OSN. Sometimes, a password may be compromised due to any reason. In such a case, the password needs to be changed in order to protect the useraccount from unauthorized access. Therefore, every user needs to regularly change the password. In our survey, 42% of the participants did not change their passwords regularly. _Question: Do you customize your privacy settings?_  
Almost every OSN provides some level of access control to their users. Users can restrict the access to their contents by using the customized access control mechanism provided by OSNs. However, 43% of users did not even use the existing privacy settings provided by the OSNs. _Question: Do you have any password on your mobile device that you use for social networking?_  
Currently, many of the users use their mobile devices for social networking. Normally, apps are used for this purpose. Any person who has access to a mobile device can access all apps installed on it.