PhishCatcher: Enhancing Client-Side Security Against Web Spoofing Through Machine Learning

  • Unique Paper ID: 205407
  • Volume: 13
  • Issue: 1
  • PageNo: 7745-7753
  • Abstract:
  • Phishing attacks are among the most prevalent and dangerous cybersecurity threats, aiming to deceive users into revealing sensitive information such as login credentials, financial data, and personal details through fraudulent websites. Traditional phishing detection techniques, including blacklist-based and signature-based approaches, often struggle to identify newly emerging phishing sites and may suffer from latency and accuracy limitations. To address these challenges, this paper presents PhishCatcher, a machine learning-based client-side defence system designed to detect and prevent phishing attacks in real time. Implemented as a Google Chrome extension, PhishCatcher analyzes various URL and webpage features, including domain characteristics, URL structure, security indicators, and website behaviour, to classify websites as legitimate or phishing. A supervised machine learning model is trained using a dataset of legitimate and malicious URLs to achieve accurate classification. The proposed system operates directly within the user's browser, ensuring low latency, enhanced privacy, and immediate protection against potential threats. Experimental results demonstrate that PhishCatcher achieves a detection accuracy of 98.5%, with high precision and recall, effectively distinguishing phishing websites from legitimate ones. The findings indicate that the proposed solution offers a reliable, scalable, and efficient approach to enhancing web security and protecting users from evolving phishing attacks.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{205407,
        author = {Mandarapu Kamakshi Devi and B. Manohar Prasad},
        title = {PhishCatcher: Enhancing Client-Side Security Against Web Spoofing Through Machine Learning},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {1},
        pages = {7745-7753},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=205407},
        abstract = {Phishing attacks are among the most prevalent and dangerous cybersecurity threats, aiming to deceive users into revealing sensitive information such as login credentials, financial data, and personal details through fraudulent websites. Traditional phishing detection techniques, including blacklist-based and signature-based approaches, often struggle to identify newly emerging phishing sites and may suffer from latency and accuracy limitations. To address these challenges, this paper presents PhishCatcher, a machine learning-based client-side defence system designed to detect and prevent phishing attacks in real time. Implemented as a Google Chrome extension, PhishCatcher analyzes various URL and webpage features, including domain characteristics, URL structure, security indicators, and website behaviour, to classify websites as legitimate or phishing. A supervised machine learning model is trained using a dataset of legitimate and malicious URLs to achieve accurate classification. The proposed system operates directly within the user's browser, ensuring low latency, enhanced privacy, and immediate protection against potential threats. Experimental results demonstrate that PhishCatcher achieves a detection accuracy of 98.5%, with high precision and recall, effectively distinguishing phishing websites from legitimate ones. The findings indicate that the proposed solution offers a reliable, scalable, and efficient approach to enhancing web security and protecting users from evolving phishing attacks.},
        keywords = {Phishing Detection, Machine Learning, Cybersecurity, Chrome Extension, URL Analysis, Web Security, Client-Side Defence, PhishCatcher.},
        month = {June},
        }

Cite This Article

Devi, M. K., & Prasad, B. M. (2026). PhishCatcher: Enhancing Client-Side Security Against Web Spoofing Through Machine Learning. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT). https://doi.org/doi.org/10.64643/IJIRTV13I1-205407-459

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