PhishDetect is a set of tools designed to provide additional protection to individuals at risk from phishing attacks. PhishDetect is composed of a server, generally called a PhishDetect Node, and a number of clients, including a browser extension and other applications.
If you are not familiar at all with PhishDetect and its purpose, you should first refer to our design document before proceeding any further with this guide. If you are looking for instructions on how to use PhishDetect (as a user, rather than as an administrator) please refer to the official Help page instead.
A PhishDetect Node serves three main purposes.
- Collection of known malicious indicators
It exposes a REST API interface that offers a collection of known malicious indicators, distributed in a hashed form, that clients can check potential suspicious elements against. For exampe, the PhishDetect Browser Extension regularly contacts this REST API to fetch hashed malicious domain names and blocks visits to a site matching any of those domain names. Additionally, it integrates with Gmail web interface and it checks the sender of any opened email, against the list of hashed malicious email addresses also offered by the REST API of the configured PhishDetect Node.
- Analyze suspicious unknown links and pages
It exposes a Web GUI that allows to dynamically check a suspicious URL or HTML of a page to identify elements indicative of a potential phishing page. For example, through buttons and context menu items added by the PhishDetect Browser Extension, a user can request the configured PhishDetect Node to check a suspicious link that was sent to them before actually visiting it.
- Receive notifications and raw messages
PhishDetect clients (such as the Browser Extension) are also able to send notifications to the server in case any suspicious event occurred. For example, if a user attempted to visit a blocklisted site, or if they received an email from a blocklisted email address, they can notify the PhishDetect Node operators. Additionally, clients can allow users to send raw messages, such as full email sources, in order to allow operators to further investigate.
Essentially, a PhishDetect Node is the core component in the ecosystem of PhishDetect tools. This guide will provide you instructions on how to setup and configure a PhishDetect Node of your own. The first step, is to read on what are the reasons to setup and run one.