About The Project

In 2023, Scamwatch reported that Australians lost $476,778,116 to scams. These scammers often use tactics like phishing to trick individuals into giving up sensitive information. Many of these phishing messages appear legitimate, posing as trusted institutions or familiar contacts, making it challenging for people to identify potential scams on their own. Is It Bait is an AI-powered fraud detection tool developed by Jermaine Portelli to help people determine whether a message they have received is malicious so that they can make informed judgments on how to proceed.

The AI analyses messages inputted by the user and returns a malicious likelihood rating ranging from one to ten. A rating of one means that the message is very unlikely to be malicious, and a ten means that the message is very likely to be malicious. The AI also provides five reasons why it has drawn this conclusion.

When users submit a message to Is It Bait for analysis, the AI attempts to remove any personal information before storing the message in a secure database. This anonymised data allows us to create a valuable dataset that may aid future research into identifying patterns in phishing and fraudulent messaging tactics. By building this database, Is It Bait not only helps users make safer choices, but also contributes to a broader understanding of fraud detection and prevention strategies.