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Improving phishing email detection performance through deep learning with adaptive optimization

delete2025-10-21
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OA
AI
M
Mehdi Hosseinzadeh *
U
Usman Ali
S
Saqib Ali
R
Ramin Abbaszadi
F
Farhad Soleimanian Gharehchopogh
P
Parisa Khoshvaght
T
Thantrira Porntaveetus *
J
Jan Lánský *
DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-20668-5delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Phishing email attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, placing a heavy burden on cybersecurity, which requires more advanced detection techniques. Attackers often craft emails that closely resemble those from trusted sources, making it difficult for users and traditional filters to distinguish between legitimate and malicious messages. This paper introduces a new hybrid deep learning and optimizer architecture for detecting phishing emails based on the Mountain Gazelle Optimizer (MGO). A hybrid architecture is proposed, comprising contextual embedding using Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), feature extraction with Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) temporal dependencies, and multi-head attention for refining the key feature focus in email text. The dataset used in this paper for phishing detection is obtained from the Kaggle website, which includes phishing and legitimate emails. Hyperparameter optimization with the MGO results in a robust model with good classification accuracy. Our experiments demonstrate improved accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score, with values of 96.8%, 97.2%, 95.4%, and 96.3%, respectively, for enhanced phishing email detection compared to baseline models. Also, the model reduces false positives by 2.5% compared to state-of-the-art conventional methods. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of transformer-based embeddings, combined with advanced neural networks and optimization techniques, in mitigating phishing threats.
Keywords:
Phishing email detection
Deep learning
Mountain gazelle optimizer
Email security
Machine learning
Optimization

Journal

Scientific Reports cover
Scientific Reports
IF:
3.9
Papers:
28.3W
Citations:
83.5W

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Saveetha School of Engineering
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College of Economics and Political Science
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Faculty of Dentistry
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department of computer science and engineering
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