Journal of Fuzzy Systems and Control (JFSC)
Vol. 3 No. 3 (2025): Vol. 3 No. 3 (2025)

Phishing Website Detection via a Transfer Learning based XGBoost Meta-learner with SMOTE-Tomek

Joy Agboi (Delta State University Abraka)
Frances Uche Emordi (Dennis Osadebay University)
Christopher Chukwufunaya Odiakaose (Dennis Osadebay University Asaba)
Rebecca Okeoghene Idama (Southern Delta University)
Evans Fubara Jumbo (Edwin Clark University)
Amanda Enaodona Oweimieotu (Edwin Clark University)
Peace Oguguo Ezzeh (Federal College of Education (Technical))
Andrew Okonji Eboka (Federal College of Education (Technical))
Anne Odoh (Pan-Atlantic University)
Eferhire Valentine Ugbotu (University of Salford)
Paul Avwerosuoghene Onoma (Federal University of Petroleum Resources)
Arnold Adimabua Ojugo (Federal University of Petroleum Resources)
Tabitha Chukwudi Aghaunor (Robert Morris University)
Amaka Patience Binitie (Federal College of Education (Technical))
Christopher Chukwudi Onochie (Federal College of Education (Technical))
Patrick Ogholuwarami Ejeh (Dennis Osadebay University)
Blessing Uche Nwozor (Federal University of Petroleum Resources)



Article Info

Publish Date
13 Oct 2025

Abstract

The widespread proliferation of smartphones has advanced portability, data access ease, mobility, and other merits; it has also birthed adversarial targeting of network resources that seek to compromise unsuspecting user devices. Increased susceptibility was traced to user's personality, which renders them repeatedly vulnerable to exploits. Our study posits a stacked learning model to classify malicious lures used by adversaries on phishing websites. Our hybrid fuses 3-base learners (i.e. Genetic Algorithm, Random Forest, Modular Net) with its output sent as input to the XGBoost. The imbalanced dataset was resolved via SMOTE-Tomek with predictors selected using a relief rank feature selection. Our hybrid yields F1 0.995, Accuracy 1.000, Recall 0.998, Precision 1.000, MCC 1.000, and Specificity 1.000 – to accurately classify all 3,316 cases of its held-out test dataset. Results affirm that it outperformed benchmark ensembles. The study shows that our proposed model, as explored on the UCI Phishing Website dataset, effectively classified phishing (cues and lures) contents on websites.

Copyrights © 2025






Journal Info

Abbrev

jfsc

Publisher

Subject

Control & Systems Engineering Electrical & Electronics Engineering Energy Engineering

Description

Journal of Fuzzy Systems and Control is an international peer review journal that published papers about Fuzzy Logic and Control Systems. The Journal of Fuzzy Systems and Control should encompass original research articles, review articles, and case studies that contribute to the advancement of the ...