Ensemble Learning-Based Browser Extension for Mitigating Cyber Attacks Carried out using Malicious Short URLs

Abstract

As digitization continues to expand and cybercrimes become more prevalent, making it is crucial to prioritize the implementation of robust security measures. Malicious short URLs are frequently utilized as a vector for cyber-attacks on online forums and social media platforms. To address this issue, a plugin-based solution that uses ensemble learning to combine random forest, k-neighbors classifier, and logistic regression into a stacked model, was developed. The model was trained over the combination of three most popular kaggle datasets, with over 1081195 URLs. Additionally, gradient boosting was applied to further enhance the model's performance, resulting in a 92% accuracy in the detection. We developed the browser extension with Flask and JavaScript that identifies URLs as malicious or safe, for facilitation of the proposed solution. The work emphasizes the need for effective measures to mitigate cyber-attack risks, particularly those involving malicious short URLs.