SMSProcessing Using Optical Character Recognition for Smishing Detection
Lidia Prudente-Tixteco, Jesús Olivares-Mercado, Karina Toscano · 2026
Instant messaging services are the main modern means of communication because they allow the exchange of messages between people anywhere and through many types of devices.Smishing involves sending text messages spoofing banks, government institutions, or companies in order to deceive.These messages often include malicious links that redirect users to fraudulent websites designed to steal personal information and commit financial fraud, identity theft, and extortion, among other crimes.Detecting smishing requires techniques to prevent access to dynamic links generated by cybercriminals to take control of devices or to consult blacklists of malicious links.Optical Character Recognition (OCR) recognizes text embedded in images without accessing links.This paper presents a conceptual model that uses OCR to extract text from messages suspected of smishing from a screenshot of a mobile device so that further processing can analyze whether it is smishing.