With the widespread use of social media, organizations, and individuals use these platforms to raise funds and support causes. Unfortunately, this has led to the rise of scammers in soliciting fraudulent donations. In this study, we conduct a large-scale analysis of donation-based scams on social media platforms. More specifically, we studied profile creation and scam operation fraudulent donation solicitation on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Telegram. By collecting data from 151,966 accounts and their 3,053,333 posts related to donations between March 2024 and May 2024, we identified 832 scammers using various techniques to deceive users into making fraudulent donations. Analyzing the fraud communication channels such as phone number, email, and external URL linked, we show that these scamming accounts perform various fraudulent donation schemes, including classic abuse such as fake fundraising website setup, crowdsourcing fundraising, and asking users to communicate via email, phone, and pay via various payment methods. Through collaboration with industry partners PayPal and cryptocurrency abuse database Chainabuse, we further validated the scams and measured the financial losses on these platforms. Our study highlights significant weaknesses in social media platforms' ability to protect users from fraudulent donations. Additionally, we recommended social media platforms, and financial services for taking proactive steps to block these fraudulent activities. Our study provides a foundation for the security community and researchers to automate detecting and mitigating fraudulent donation solicitation on social media platforms.

翻译：随着社交媒体的广泛使用，组织和个人利用这些平台筹集资金并支持公益事业。不幸的是，这也导致了诈骗分子通过募集欺诈性捐赠的行为日益猖獗。在本研究中，我们对社交媒体平台上基于捐赠的诈骗行为进行了大规模分析。具体而言，我们研究了X、Instagram、Facebook、YouTube和Telegram上的账户创建与诈骗运作模式。通过收集2024年3月至2024年5月期间151,966个账户及其3,053,333条与捐赠相关的帖子数据，我们识别出832名诈骗者使用多种技术欺骗用户进行欺诈性捐赠。通过分析电话号码、电子邮件和关联外部URL等欺诈通信渠道，我们发现这些诈骗账户实施多种欺诈性捐赠计划，包括建立虚假筹款网站、众筹募捐以及要求用户通过电子邮件、电话沟通并通过多种支付方式付款等典型滥用行为。通过与行业合作伙伴PayPal及加密货币滥用数据库Chainabuse的合作，我们进一步验证了这些诈骗行为并量化了相关平台的经济损失。我们的研究揭示了社交媒体平台在保护用户免受欺诈性捐赠侵害方面存在显著不足。此外，我们建议社交媒体平台和金融服务机构采取积极措施阻断这些欺诈活动。本研究为安全社区和研究人员自动化检测与缓解社交媒体平台上的欺诈性捐赠募集行为奠定了基础。