A Deep Learning Approach to Phishing Detection Using BiLSTM with an Attention Mechanism

Title

A Deep Learning Approach to Phishing Detection Using BiLSTM with an Attention Mechanism

Creator

Kiran, Talari Uday; Vigneshwaran, T.; Natarajan, K.

Description

Phishing sites are a serious cyber threat as they trick users into revealing sensitive personal data. Conventional detection techniques, including rule-based systems and blocklists, cannot cope with changing phishing tactics. In this paper, a new approach to phishing detection is introduced using a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) network with an attention mechanism. The suggested model learns and examines URL-based features and identifies forward and backward relationships in data, enhancing classification accuracy. A 30,000 URL-tagged dataset is utilized to train the model, which is then optimized with the help of methods like sequence tokenization, embedding layers, dropout regularization, and class weight balancing to counter data imbalance issues. The BiLSTM layer processes sequential information about URLs in a bidirectional manner, whereas the attention mechanism applies weights to important features differently to ensure the model pays attention to the most critical elements of phishing URLs. The model was tested based on standard performance metrics and has attained an astounding accuracy of 99.22%, precision of 99.1%, recall of 99.3%, and an F1-score of 99.2%, surpassing the traditional approach like Logistic Regression. The model indicates good generalization ability and is possible to be applied in real-time in web security systems. In the future, the use of dynamic data analysis and large datasets will be applied to improve further the detection efficiency and responsiveness against the new emerging phishing attacks. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2026.

Source

Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems;Volume;1612 LNNS;pp.445-457

Date

01-01-2026

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH

Subject

Attention mechanism; BiLSTM; Machine learning; Phishing websites

Coverage

Kiran T.U., Department of AI, ML and Data Science, Christ University, Karnataka, Bengaluru, India; Vigneshwaran T., Department of AI, ML and Data Science, Christ University, Karnataka, Bengaluru, India; Natarajan K., Department of AI, ML and Data Science, Christ University, Karnataka, Bengaluru, India

Rights

Restricted Access; Hardcopy may be available in the library

Relation

ISSN: 23673370; ISBN: 978-981952871-4;

Format

online

Language

English

Type

Conference paper

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-95-2872-1_32

https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105028264891?origin=resultslist