On-Device Smishing Classifier Resistant to Text Evasion Attack

Smishing (SMS phishing) is a cybercrime in which criminals send fraudulent messages, including malicious links, to steal the victims’ private data or cause financial losses. The damage caused by smishing has become more severe, particularly with the proliferation of mobile devices. In smi...

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Main Authors: Jae Woo Seo, Jong Sung Lee, Hyunwoo Kim, Joonghwan Lee, Seongwon Han, Jungil Cho, Choong-Hoon Lee
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2024-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10380589/
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author Jae Woo Seo
Jong Sung Lee
Hyunwoo Kim
Joonghwan Lee
Seongwon Han
Jungil Cho
Choong-Hoon Lee
author_facet Jae Woo Seo
Jong Sung Lee
Hyunwoo Kim
Joonghwan Lee
Seongwon Han
Jungil Cho
Choong-Hoon Lee
author_sort Jae Woo Seo
collection DOAJ
description Smishing (SMS phishing) is a cybercrime in which criminals send fraudulent messages, including malicious links, to steal the victims’ private data or cause financial losses. The damage caused by smishing has become more severe, particularly with the proliferation of mobile devices. In smishing, a major difficulty faced by victims is discrimination between normal and smishing messages. To resolve this problem, we present an on-device smishing classifier based on a deep-learning model. In real-world scenarios, access to a substantial, authentic dataset is crucial. We trained and evaluated the classifier using real SMS datasets containing approximately 250,000 smishing messages and 950,000 normal messages obtained from victims in Korea. To ensure privacy, the classifier operates solely on mobile devices without externally transmitting any data. It utilizes a lightweight method that does not require significant computing power on mobile devices. We explored several models to determine a suitable model for mobile devices and optimized it using real datasets. Furthermore, our statistical analysis of actual smishing messages revealed that 98% of smishing messages are variants of previously sent messages. To address the prevalence of variant smishing messages, we propose a text evasion attack tool called EVA that is capable of generating pseudo-variant messages from a given message using an adversarial attack approach. We used this tool to evaluate and enhance the robustness of our classifier against various messages. Our classifier exhibited exceptional classification accuracy (0.99) while being lightweight (at 127 kB) and robust against variant smishing messages (attack success rate of 0.41).
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spelling doaj.art-a3155723a32341d586c808cef3c717042024-01-12T00:02:02ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362024-01-01124762477910.1109/ACCESS.2024.334957710380589On-Device Smishing Classifier Resistant to Text Evasion AttackJae Woo Seo0https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8134-1947Jong Sung Lee1Hyunwoo Kim2Joonghwan Lee3https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7820-8415Seongwon Han4https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2198-1711Jungil Cho5Choong-Hoon Lee6https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5146-0259Samsung Research, Seoul, Republic of KoreaSamsung Research, Seoul, Republic of KoreaSamsung Research, Seoul, Republic of KoreaSamsung Research, Seoul, Republic of KoreaSamsung Research, Seoul, Republic of KoreaSamsung Research, Seoul, Republic of KoreaSamsung Research, Seoul, Republic of KoreaSmishing (SMS phishing) is a cybercrime in which criminals send fraudulent messages, including malicious links, to steal the victims’ private data or cause financial losses. The damage caused by smishing has become more severe, particularly with the proliferation of mobile devices. In smishing, a major difficulty faced by victims is discrimination between normal and smishing messages. To resolve this problem, we present an on-device smishing classifier based on a deep-learning model. In real-world scenarios, access to a substantial, authentic dataset is crucial. We trained and evaluated the classifier using real SMS datasets containing approximately 250,000 smishing messages and 950,000 normal messages obtained from victims in Korea. To ensure privacy, the classifier operates solely on mobile devices without externally transmitting any data. It utilizes a lightweight method that does not require significant computing power on mobile devices. We explored several models to determine a suitable model for mobile devices and optimized it using real datasets. Furthermore, our statistical analysis of actual smishing messages revealed that 98% of smishing messages are variants of previously sent messages. To address the prevalence of variant smishing messages, we propose a text evasion attack tool called EVA that is capable of generating pseudo-variant messages from a given message using an adversarial attack approach. We used this tool to evaluate and enhance the robustness of our classifier against various messages. Our classifier exhibited exceptional classification accuracy (0.99) while being lightweight (at 127 kB) and robust against variant smishing messages (attack success rate of 0.41).https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10380589/Phone scamssmishingclassificationadversarial attacksadversarial training
spellingShingle Jae Woo Seo
Jong Sung Lee
Hyunwoo Kim
Joonghwan Lee
Seongwon Han
Jungil Cho
Choong-Hoon Lee
On-Device Smishing Classifier Resistant to Text Evasion Attack
IEEE Access
Phone scams
smishing
classification
adversarial attacks
adversarial training
title On-Device Smishing Classifier Resistant to Text Evasion Attack
title_full On-Device Smishing Classifier Resistant to Text Evasion Attack
title_fullStr On-Device Smishing Classifier Resistant to Text Evasion Attack
title_full_unstemmed On-Device Smishing Classifier Resistant to Text Evasion Attack
title_short On-Device Smishing Classifier Resistant to Text Evasion Attack
title_sort on device smishing classifier resistant to text evasion attack
topic Phone scams
smishing
classification
adversarial attacks
adversarial training
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10380589/
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