A Network Model to Study the Underlying Characteristics of Phishing Sites

Abstract

In the rapidly evolving landscape of cyber threats, phishing continues to be a prominent vector for cyberattacks, posing significant risks to individuals, organizations and information systems. This letter delves into a comprehensive analysis of phishing sites, focusing on their distinctive characteristics through the lens of network perspectives. In this letter, we study the underlying characteristics of phishing sites from the hyperlinked connectivity perspectives. In this letter, we have used a phishing site dataset available at Mendeley data. As the dataset does not contain any hyperlinked information, We further collect the hyperlinks in each site and store that information in a JSON file. We further analyze the hyperlinks and the various features of those sites. The initial study reveals that though the Phishing sites mimic the original legitimate sites to trap people in their sites, it has distinct differences from the perspective of structural connectivity as well as the content of sites.