Evaluation of AI Models for Phishing Detection Using Open Datasets

Phishing is a form of cyber-attack that aims to steal sensitive information by impersonating a trusted entity. To overcome this threat, various artificial intelligence (AI) methods have been developed to improve the effectiveness of phishing detection. This study evaluates three machine learning models, namely Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), and Support Vector Machine (SVM), using an open dataset containing phishing and non-phishing URLs. The research process includes data preprocessing stages such as cleaning, normalization, categorical feature encoding, feature selection, and dividing the dataset into training and test data. The trained models are then evaluated using accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and comparison score metrics to determine the best model in phishing classification. The evaluation results show that the Random Forest model has the best performance with higher accuracy and generalization of 98.64% compared to Decision Tree which is only 98.37% and SVM 92.67%. Decision Tree has advantages in speed and interpretability but is susceptible to overfitting. SVM shows good performance on high-dimensional datasets but is less efficient in computing time. Based on the research results, Random Forest is recommended as the most optimal model for machine learning-based phishing detection.

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Publication Details

Published
2025-08-28
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/engproc2025107037
Primary Topic
Spam and Phishing Detection
Type
article
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article

Evaluation of AI Models for Phishing Detection Using Open Datasets

Sepsiana Puspitasari, Adhitia Erfina, Rina Rina, Nur Aniyansyah
Spam and Phishing Detection
article

Evaluation of AI Models for Phishing Detection Using Open Datasets

Sepsiana Puspitasari, Adhitia Erfina, Rina Rina, Nur Aniyansyah
article en

Abstract

Phishing is a form of cyber-attack that aims to steal sensitive information by impersonating a trusted entity. To overcome this threat, various artificial intelligence (AI) methods have been developed to improve the effectiveness of phishing detection. This study evaluates three machine learning models, namely Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), and Support Vector Machine (SVM), using an open dataset containing phishing and non-phishing URLs. The research process includes data preprocessing stages such as cleaning, normalization, categorical feature encoding, feature selection, and dividing the dataset into training and test data. The trained models are then evaluated using accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and comparison score metrics to determine the best model in phishing classification. The evaluation results show that the Random Forest model has the best performance with higher accuracy and generalization of 98.64% compared to Decision Tree which is only 98.37% and SVM 92.67%. Decision Tree has advantages in speed and interpretability but is susceptible to overfitting. SVM shows good performance on high-dimensional datasets but is less efficient in computing time. Based on the research results, Random Forest is recommended as the most optimal model for machine learning-based phishing detection.

Universitas Wijaya Putra (ID)
Openalex Percentile: Top 65%
Spam and Phishing Detection
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