Intelligent Phishing Detection Platform (phishshield)

Abstract

Phishing Attacks Continue To Represent One Of The Most Prevalent And Operationally Effective Cybersecurity Threats Targeting Everyday Internet Users. Adversaries Craft Malicious URLs That Closely Imitate Legitimate Websites With The Intent To Steal Credentials, Banking Details, And Sensitive Personal Data. This Paper Presents PhishShield — An Intelligent Phishing Detection Platform Developed Using Python And FastAPI. The System Subjects Any Submitted URL To A Multi-layer Detection Pipeline Comprising Heuristic Rule Evaluation, Shannon Entropy Analysis, Suspicious Top-level Domain (TLD) Identification, Deep Subdomain Inspection, Digit Randomisation Scoring, And Live Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) Domain-age Intelligence. All Indicators Are Aggregated Into A Single Weighted Risk Score That Classifies The URL As SAFE, SUSPICIOUS, Or PHISHING. Scan Results Are Persisted In A Local SQLite Database, And A Real-time Dark-themed Web Dashboard Enables Users To Submit URLs And Instantly Obtain A Verdict, Risk Meter Visualisation, And Historical Scan Data. Empirical Testing Across A Dataset Of 100 URLs — Comprising 50 Known-phishing Samples And 50 Legitimate URLs — Demonstrated 92% Accuracy On Phishing Samples And 96% Accuracy On Legitimate URLs, With An Average Scan Time Below One Second. The Platform Is Fully Modular, Lightweight, And Deployable On Any Standard Python Environment Without Requiring Expensive External APIs Or Cloud Subscription Services.

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