Abeer Alhuzali^1,*, Qamar Al-Qahtani¹, Asmaa Niyazi¹, Lama Alshehri¹, Fatemah Alharbi²

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.1, pp. 1-19, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.069491 - 10 November 2025

Abstract The surge in smishing attacks underscores the urgent need for robust, real-time detection systems powered by advanced deep learning models. This paper introduces PhishNet, a novel ensemble learning framework that integrates transformer-based models (RoBERTa) and large language models (LLMs) (GPT-OSS 120B, LLaMA3.3 70B, and Qwen3 32B) to enhance smishing detection performance significantly. To mitigate class imbalance, we apply synthetic data augmentation using T5 and leverage various text preprocessing techniques. Our system employs a dual-layer voting mechanism: weighted majority voting among LLMs and a final ensemble vote to classify messages as ham, spam, or smishing. Experimental More >

Nimra Bari¹, Tahir Saleem², Munam Shah³, Abdulmohsen Algarni⁴, Asma Patel^5,*, Insaf Ullah^6,*

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.145, No.1, pp. 1167-1187, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2025.070311 - 30 October 2025

Abstract Today, phishing is an online attack designed to obtain sensitive information such as credit card and bank account numbers, passwords, and usernames. We can find several anti-phishing solutions, such as heuristic detection, virtual similarity detection, black and white lists, and machine learning (ML). However, phishing attempts remain a problem, and establishing an effective anti-phishing strategy is a work in progress. Furthermore, while most anti-phishing solutions achieve the highest levels of accuracy on a given dataset, their methods suffer from an increased number of false positives. These methods are ineffective against zero-hour attacks. Phishing sites with… More >

Hanyong Lee^#, Ye-Chan Park^#, Jaesung Lee^*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.85, No.3, pp. 4977-4993, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.068156 - 23 October 2025

Abstract Restoring texts corrupted by visually perturbed homoglyph characters presents significant challenges to conventional Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems, primarily due to ambiguities arising from characters that appear visually similar yet differ semantically. Traditional text restoration methods struggle with these homoglyph perturbations due to limitations such as a lack of contextual understanding and difficulty in handling cases where one character maps to multiple candidates. To address these issues, we propose an Optical Character Recognition (OCR)-assisted masked Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model specifically designed for homoglyph-perturbed text restoration. Our method integrates OCR preprocessing with a… More >

Yulin Yao, Kangfeng Zheng, Bin Wu^*, Chunhua Wu, Jiaqi Gao, Jvjie Wang, Minjiao Yang

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.85, No.3, pp. 4753-4776, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.065059 - 23 October 2025

Abstract Cognitive biases are commonly used by attackers to manipulate users’ psychology in phishing emails. This study systematically analyzes the exploitation of cognitive biases in phishing emails and addresses the following questions: (1) Which cognitive biases are frequently exploited in phishing emails? (2) How are cognitive biases exploited in phishing emails? (3) How effective are cognitive bias features in detecting phishing emails? (4) How can the exploitation of cognitive biases in phishing emails be modelled? To address these questions, this study constructed a cognitive processing model that explains how attackers manipulate users by leveraging cognitive biases More >

Ananya Jha¹, Amaresh Jha^2,*

Journal of Cyber Security, Vol.7, pp. 109-134, 2025, DOI:10.32604/jcs.2025.064429 - 30 May 2025

Abstract This paper explores the methodologies employed in the study of mobile and social media phishing, aiming to enhance the understanding of these evolving threats and develop robust countermeasures. By synthesizing existing research, we identify key approaches, including surveys, controlled experiments, data mining, and machine learning, to gather and analyze data on phishing tactics. These methods enable us to uncover patterns in attacker behavior, pinpoint vulnerabilities in mobile and social platforms, and evaluate the effectiveness of current detection and prevention strategies. Our findings highlight the growing sophistication of phishing techniques, such as social engineering and deceptive More >

Kagiso Komane^1,*, Lucas Khoza², Fani Radebe¹

Journal of Cyber Security, Vol.7, pp. 79-108, 2025, DOI:10.32604/jcs.2025.059712 - 20 May 2025

Abstract Financial support, government support, cyber hygiene, and ongoing education and training as well as parental guidance and supervision are all essential components of cybersecurity awareness (CSA) identified in this study among the youth. It’s critical to realize that adequate funding is needed to effectively increase CSA, particularly among South African youth. Previous studies have demonstrated several ways to address inadequate CSA by utilizing various cybersecurity frameworks, ideas, and models. To increase CSA, this literature review seeks to emphasize the significance of integrating cybersecurity education throughout the entire school curriculum. This paper identified ethical issues, protection… More >

Saad Awadh Alanazi^*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.81, No.3, pp. 4049-4080, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.057211 - 19 December 2024

Abstract Spear Phishing Attacks (SPAs) pose a significant threat to the healthcare sector, resulting in data breaches, financial losses, and compromised patient confidentiality. Traditional defenses, such as firewalls and antivirus software, often fail to counter these sophisticated attacks, which target human vulnerabilities. To strengthen defenses, healthcare organizations are increasingly adopting Machine Learning (ML) techniques. ML-based SPA defenses use advanced algorithms to analyze various features, including email content, sender behavior, and attachments, to detect potential threats. This capability enables proactive security measures that address risks in real-time. The interpretability of ML models fosters trust and allows security… More >

Brij B. Gupta^1,*, Akshat Gaurav², Razaz Waheeb Attar³, Varsha Arya⁴, Shavi Bansal⁵, Ahmed Alhomoud⁶, Kwok Tai Chui⁷

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.81, No.3, pp. 4853-4874, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.057138 - 19 December 2024

Abstract Phishing attacks are more than two-decade-old attacks that attackers use to steal passwords related to financial services. After the first reported incident in 1995, its impact keeps on increasing. Also, during COVID-19, due to the increase in digitization, there is an exponential increase in the number of victims of phishing attacks. Many deep learning and machine learning techniques are available to detect phishing attacks. However, most of the techniques did not use efficient optimization techniques. In this context, our proposed model used random forest-based techniques to select the best features, and then the Brown-Bear optimization… More >

Brij B. Gupta^1,2,3,4,*, Akshat Gaurav⁵, Varsha Arya^6,7, Razaz Waheeb Attar⁸, Shavi Bansal⁹, Ahmed Alhomoud¹⁰, Kwok Tai Chui¹¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.81, No.3, pp. 4109-4124, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.056476 - 19 December 2024

Abstract Phishing attacks seriously threaten information privacy and security within the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Numerous phishing attack detection solutions have been developed for IoT; however, many of these are either not optimally efficient or lack the lightweight characteristics needed for practical application. This paper proposes and optimizes a lightweight deep-learning model for phishing attack detection. Our model employs a two-fold optimization approach: first, it utilizes the analysis of the variance (ANOVA) F-test to select the optimal features for phishing detection, and second, it applies the Cuckoo Search algorithm to tune the hyperparameters (learning rate… More >

Arar Al Tawil^1,*, Laiali Almazaydeh², Doaa Qawasmeh³, Baraah Qawasmeh⁴, Mohammad Alshinwan^1,5, Khaled Elleithy⁶

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.81, No.2, pp. 3395-3412, 2024, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2024.057279 - 18 November 2024

Abstract Cybercriminals often use fraudulent emails and fictitious email accounts to deceive individuals into disclosing confidential information, a practice known as phishing. This study utilizes three distinct methodologies, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency, Word2Vec, and Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, to evaluate the effectiveness of various machine learning algorithms in detecting phishing attacks. The study uses feature extraction methods to assess the performance of Logistic Regression, Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Multilayer Perceptron algorithms. The best results for each classifier using Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency were Multilayer Perceptron (Precision: 0.98, Recall: 0.98, F1-score: 0.98, Accuracy: 0.98). Word2Vec’s More >