Communications of the ACM
nder Cyberattack: h Researchers Look at How to Catch a 'phisher'
University of Houston researchers are working to develop the next generation of email filters.
Credit: University of Houston News
Researchers at the University of Houston are studying why phishing attacks are so successful in an attempt to develop the next generation of email filters to better identify and defend against this type of cyberattack.
The researchers used publicly available emails from Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin as they looked for characteristics of phishing emails and traits of the email users to determine what factors contribute to successful attacks. They also employed natural-language generation to create fake phishing emails from real emails, a tactic often used by hackers to execute "masquerade attacks," in which they pretend to be authorized users of a system by replicating the writing styles of the compromised account.
The study found 52% of volunteer email users accurately detected the real emails.
The researchers presented their findings last month at the ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS 2017) in the United Arab Emirates.
From University of Houston News
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