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A Comparative Analysis of Anti-Phishing Mechanisms: Email Phishing

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A Comparative Analysis of Anti-Phishing Mechanisms: Email Phishing Volume 8, No. 3, March – April 2017 ISSN No. 0976-5697 International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science REVIEW ARTICLE Available Online at www.ijarcs.info A Comparative Analysis of Anti-Phishing Mechanisms: Email Phishing ShwetaSankhwar and Dhirendra Pandey BabasahebBhimraoAmbedkar University Lucknow, U. P., India Abstract: Phishing has created a serious threat towards internet security. Phish e-mails are used chiefly to deceive confidential information of individual and organizations. Phishing e-mails entice naïve users and organizations to reveal confidential information such as, personal details, passwords, account numbers, credit card pins, etc. Phisher spread spoofed e-mails as coming from legitimate sources, phishers gain access to such sensitive information that eventually results in identity and financial losses.In this research paper,aexhaustive study is done on anti-phishing mechanism from year 2002 to 2014. A comparative analysis report of anti-phishing detection, prevention and protection mechanisms from last decade is listed. This comparativeanalysis reports the anti-phishing mechanism run on server side or client side and which vulnerable area is coverd by it. The vulnerable area is divided into three categories on the basis of email structure. The number of vulnerabilties covered by existing anti-phishing mechanisms are listed to identify the focus or unfocused vulnerability. This research paper could be said as tutorial of a existing anti-phishing research work from decade. The current work examines the effectiveness of the tools and techniques against email phishing. It aims to determine pitfalls and vulnerability of anti-phishing tools and techniques against email phishing. This work could improve the understanding of the security loopholes, the current solution space, and increase the accuracy or performance to counterfeit the phishing attack. Keywords: Phishing, E-mail phishing, Information security, web vulnerabilities, cyber-security. I. INTRODUCTION almost all thevulnebilities causing email phishng; Section IV. shows thefindings of the paper;and at last VI concludes The present day primary hazardisdirected towards online the paper. identity&confidentialinformation, primarily because of the boom of internet users. E-mails are economical and are used II. PHISHING in increasing number of times by companies and individuals for various means (like e-commerce services, et al). Con Recent years have witnessed,phished e-mails asafirst-rate artists, throughmasqueradinglegitimate-mails sent from tool for deceptionof online users into revealing sensitive reputable organization(s),phish e-mails,acquiredinformation information. Firstly phishersgather information by ‘social such as banking accounts, credit card details, etc. to gain engineering’ (making laws or using other methods to access to sensitive personal information and thereby posing influence public opinionand solve social problems or a serious threat to internet users. They allure the users to improve social conditions). They then createphished e-mails visit their spoofed website and download malicious content, and feastonthem through different service providers like thereby providing access to delicate data. This paper Gmail, Yahoo, Rediffmail, hotmail, etc.Fundamentally, a highlights detection and prevention mechanisms (with phished e-mail is a replica of a general, legitimate e-mail summarized descriptions) against phishing e-mails from the from a trusted source (individual or organization). last ten years (2002-2014). A phished e-mail can be, The mechanisms have been studied,analyzed and (a)Textual, offering special schemes at lucrative rates, lucky theirdescription, along with their year,tool/algorithm used winner rewards, etc. to drawpersonalinfo; and thrown light on the variousscopes of phish e-mail (b) Embedded with a urlredirectingtheonline user to fake detection mechanisms. A comparative analysis report of webpages, askingthe recipients to do the same as in point anti-phishing detection, prevention and protection (a); mechanisms from last decade is listed. This comparative (c)Rooted with a malicious attachments, i.e., infected PDFs analysis reports the anti-phishing mechanism run on server or MS Office documents, et al that, upon being downloaded, side or client side and which vulnerable area iscoverd by it. gain indignifiedaccess to private information . The vulnerable area is divided into three categories on the basis of email structure. The number of vulnerabilities The subsequent list is drawn on the evolution of e-mail covered by existing anti-phishing mechanisms are listed to phishingmechanisms through the last decade. This identify the focus or unfocused vulnerability by researcher. exhaustive study is based one-mails phishing tools or This paper could be said as tutorial of an existing anti- mechanism,primarilyis based on where the anti-phishing phishing research work from decade. It gives a background mechanism run on server side or client side and also which and a deep literature on anti-phishing which could lead vulnerable area is coverd by it. The phish e-mails divided in recent researcher to fill gaps of security breach causing three categories i.e. Page content, Link/domain based, phishing attack and innovate or develop secure anti-phish Header based.Vulnerabilities are loopholes, pitfalls, mechanism. This paper is organized as: Section-IItakes a weaknesses which we can experience when the threat occurs look at previously developed anti-phishingdetection, more than once in a system or facility holding information, prevention and protectionmechanisms; Section III explains which can be exploited to gain access or violate system © 2015-19, IJARCS All Rights Reserved 567 Shweta Shankhwar et al, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 8 (3), March-April 2017, 567-574 integrity. Vulnerabilities can be assessed in terms of the an unwanted malicious website. The phishers always send means, by which the attack would be successful. The number such emails in which the user needs to fill up some details of vulnerbilties covered by existing anti-phishing and also provide a well-known legitimate site which is mechanisms are listed in Table.2 to identify the focus or actually malicious and redirects towards a phishing unfocused vulnerability. The naive user is fooled by an site.There are several contaminated pages and dialog boxes imitation of a trusted site but it is directed to some other web which are used by the phishers. There are some special site which is perhaps a phishing site. A secure and trusted malware programs that are either connected to the website link is used within the anchor element and the href i.e. the as a URL or Pop up or as a dialog box and perhaps attempt hyperlink reference directs the website to a malicious an imitation of a website which is actually a fake one. This website which is used by the phishers for performing their technology is used on websites where sensitive details are activity. This is a deception technique which can be used by shared by the user. The phishers try to collect and use them the user to understand that the website is not a trusted one for further activities. because when the mouse pointer is moved it redirects you to Table.1 Anti-Phishing E-Mail Mechanisms SR.N YEAR TOOL/APPROACH/ SERVER SIDE / PAGE LINK OR HEADER O. ALGORITHIM CLIENT SIDE CONTENT DOMAIN BASED BASED BASED 1 2002 DOMAIN NETWORK LEVEL NAME SYSTEM BLACKLISTS[1] 2 2004 SPOOFGUARD [2] CLIENT SIDE 4 2006 PILFER [3] CLIENT SIDE 5 2006 LINKGUARD [4] CLINT SIDE 6 2006 STRUCTURAL SERVER SIDE PROPERTIES[6] 7 2006 NETCRAFT[7] CLINT SIDE 8 2008 MODEL BASED [8] SERVER SIDE 9 2009 INTEGRATED APPROACH TO SERVER SIDE DETECT PHISHING E-MAIL ATTACK [9] 10 2010 HYPERLINK INFORMATION[10] 11 2011 MACHINE-LEARNING CLIENT SIDE TECHNIQUES; MODULE BASED [11] 12 2011 PECM ,-WITH SERVER SIDE FOOT PRINT CONSUME MEMORY HIGH SPEED[12] 13 2012 PENFF TO PREDICT SERVER SIDE DYNAMICALLY THE ZERO DAY PHISHING E-MAILS[13] 14 2012 LATENT SEMANTIC ANALYSIS SERVER SIDE [14] 15 2013 PDENFF TO DETECT SERVER SIDE AND PREDICT DYNAMICALLY THE ZERO DAY PHISHING E- MAILS [15] 16 2014 NATURAL LANGUAGE CLIENT SIDE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES [16] III. VULNERBILITIES CAUSING EMAIL PHISHING and web security, new ways of phishing are emerging to break the web security and get access to services and The most common ways to become susceptible to phishing personal information of users. The number of ways adopted attacks are: online shopping, through email and out breaking and innovated by phishers to trick the users. An exhaustive social media networks. With the advancement in technology literature review is done here and through this a report on a © 2015-19, IJARCS All Rights Reserved 568 Shweta Shankhwar et al, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 8 (3), March-April 2017, 567-574 slew of email phishing vulnerability created.This report list in their e-mail, it goes to a fraudulent website and is categorized into three partsvulnerabilitieson the basis generates a deceitful pop-up and then redirects the user email structure i.e. Page Content vulnerability (PV), Domain to the original website. This technique is used by the fraudsters to gather information without undermining vulnerability (DV) and Code-Scripting vulnerability (CV). the credibility of the site and makes the user believe that All Vulnerability are explained in detail to understand how pop-up is of an authentic website.
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