ACPPS: Autonomic Computing based Phishing Protection System

Phishing attacks are one of the most common initial access vectors malicious actors utilize to get into personal and corporate systems. The weakest component of a system in terms of security is the human user, which is the targeted. We propose a mechanism, Autonomic Computing based Phishing Protection System (ACPPS), that is able to prevent the malicious activity from succeeding regardless of the user actions. Utilizing system monitoring, self-protection, and defined policies, ACPPS will interrupt malicious processes and system calls from completing. It is able to analyze anomalous behavior and make decisions that protect both the individual system and the network from attackers. Initially, the proof of concept is paired down to handle basic phishing attempts against Windows computers from common botnets. The preliminary results of ACPSS implementation indicate that the autonomic system can be expanded to encompass increasingly sophisticated forms of attacks, across less prevalent system types compared to Windows that was utilized in this study.