Modeling Hybrid Feature-Based Phishing Websites Detection Using Machine Learning Techniques

Sumitra Guptta, Khandaker Tayef Shahriar, Hamed Alqahtani, Dheyaaldin Alsalman and Iqbal H. Sarker
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Sumitra Guptta: Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology
Khandaker Tayef Shahriar: Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology
Hamed Alqahtani: King Khalid University
Dheyaaldin Alsalman: Dar Al-Hekma University
Iqbal H. Sarker: Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology

Annals of Data Science, 2024, vol. 11, issue 1, No 10, 217-242

Abstract: Abstract In this paper, we mainly present a machine learning based approach to detect real-time phishing websites by taking into account URL and hyperlink based hybrid features to achieve high accuracy without relying on any third-party systems. In phishing, the attackers typically try to deceive internet users by masking a webpage as an official genuine webpage to steal sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, social security numbers, credit card information, etc. Anti-phishing solutions like blacklist or whitelist, heuristic, and visual similarity based methods cannot detect zero-hour phishing attacks or brand-new websites. Moreover, earlier approaches are complex and unsuitable for real-time environments due to the dependency on third-party sources, such as a search engine. Hence, detecting recently developed phishing websites in a real-time environment is a great challenge in the domain of cybersecurity. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes a hybrid feature based anti-phishing strategy that extracts features from URL and hyperlink information of client-side only. We also develop a new dataset for the purpose of conducting experiments using popular machine learning classification techniques. Our experimental result shows that the proposed phishing detection approach is more effective having higher detection accuracy of 99.17% with the XG Boost technique than traditional approaches.

Keywords: Cybersecurity; Phishing detection; Machine learning; Hyperlink feature; URL feature; Anti-phishing; XG Boost; Hybrid feature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s40745-022-00379-8

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