Marine Corps Wants to Wipe Out 'Evil Twin' Social Media Impostors

The Marine Corps wants to eliminate any "evil twins" on social media sites -- fake and impostor accounts pretending to be General Officers or senior personnel. 

The agency is looking for technology that could help weed out and report bogus social media accounts, which often send out malicious links or attempt to extort information and money from followers, according to a new solicitation. 

Currently, the Marine Corp headquarters' cybersecurity division manually crawls social networks in search of these accounts. According to the solicitation, the agency is looking for an off-the-shelf service that can scan sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram and YouTube for "evil twins."

The new system should also be able to identify trending topics in the Marine Corps community to identify potential opportunities for intruders trying to send out malware, as well as "impersonators trying to gain followership through discussion topics.”

Other requirements include:

• A process to delete fake, fraudulent and malicious accounts once identified  
• Response capability within six weeks from day of the first customer report
• Existing agreements with social media sites including  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram and YouTube for deleting fictitious accounts 

(Image via PAISAN HOMHUAN/ Shutterstock.com)