Robust ML-based Detection of Conventional, LLM-Generated, and Adversarial Phishing Emails Using Advanced Text Preprocessing

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kulal, Deeksha Hareesha, Arannonu, Chidozie Princewill, Anwar, Afsah, Rastogi, Nidhi, Niyaz, Quamar
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Kulal, Deeksha Hareesha
Arannonu, Chidozie Princewill
Anwar, Afsah
Rastogi, Nidhi
Niyaz, Quamar
author_facet Kulal, Deeksha Hareesha
Arannonu, Chidozie Princewill
Anwar, Afsah
Rastogi, Nidhi
Niyaz, Quamar
contents Phishing remains a critical cybersecurity threat, especially with the advent of large language models (LLMs) capable of generating highly convincing malicious content. Unlike earlier phishing attempts which are identifiable by grammatical errors, misspellings, incorrect phrasing, and inconsistent formatting, LLM generated emails are grammatically sound, contextually relevant, and linguistically natural. These advancements make phishing emails increasingly difficult to distinguish from legitimate ones, challenging traditional detection mechanisms. Conventional phishing detection systems often fail when faced with emails crafted by LLMs or manipulated using adversarial perturbation techniques. To address this challenge, we propose a robust phishing email detection system featuring an enhanced text preprocessing pipeline. This pipeline includes spelling correction and word splitting to counteract adversarial modifications and improve detection accuracy. Our approach integrates widely adopted natural language processing (NLP) feature extraction techniques and machine learning algorithms. We evaluate our models on publicly available datasets comprising both phishing and legitimate emails, achieving a detection accuracy of 94.26% and F1-score of 84.39% in model deployment setting. To assess robustness, we further evaluate our models using adversarial phishing samples generated by four attack methods in Python TextAttack framework. Additionally, we evaluate models' performance against phishing emails generated by LLMs including ChatGPT and Llama. Results highlight the resilience of models against evolving AI-powered phishing threats.
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spellingShingle Robust ML-based Detection of Conventional, LLM-Generated, and Adversarial Phishing Emails Using Advanced Text Preprocessing
Kulal, Deeksha Hareesha
Arannonu, Chidozie Princewill
Anwar, Afsah
Rastogi, Nidhi
Niyaz, Quamar
Cryptography and Security
Phishing remains a critical cybersecurity threat, especially with the advent of large language models (LLMs) capable of generating highly convincing malicious content. Unlike earlier phishing attempts which are identifiable by grammatical errors, misspellings, incorrect phrasing, and inconsistent formatting, LLM generated emails are grammatically sound, contextually relevant, and linguistically natural. These advancements make phishing emails increasingly difficult to distinguish from legitimate ones, challenging traditional detection mechanisms. Conventional phishing detection systems often fail when faced with emails crafted by LLMs or manipulated using adversarial perturbation techniques. To address this challenge, we propose a robust phishing email detection system featuring an enhanced text preprocessing pipeline. This pipeline includes spelling correction and word splitting to counteract adversarial modifications and improve detection accuracy. Our approach integrates widely adopted natural language processing (NLP) feature extraction techniques and machine learning algorithms. We evaluate our models on publicly available datasets comprising both phishing and legitimate emails, achieving a detection accuracy of 94.26% and F1-score of 84.39% in model deployment setting. To assess robustness, we further evaluate our models using adversarial phishing samples generated by four attack methods in Python TextAttack framework. Additionally, we evaluate models' performance against phishing emails generated by LLMs including ChatGPT and Llama. Results highlight the resilience of models against evolving AI-powered phishing threats.
title Robust ML-based Detection of Conventional, LLM-Generated, and Adversarial Phishing Emails Using Advanced Text Preprocessing
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11915