A framework to assist email users in the identification of phishing attacks

This paper proposes a framework to address the problem that email users are not well informed or assisted by their email clients in identifying possible phishing attacks, thereby putting their personal information at risk. Furthermore, it argues that email clients should make use of feedback mechanisms to present security related aspects to the users, so as to make them aware of the characteristics pertaining to such attacks. This paper therefore addresses the human weakness (i.e. the user’s lack of knowledge of phishing attacks which causes them to fall victim to such attacks) as well as the software related issue of email clients not visually assisting and guiding the users through the user interface.