R-NTN: a robust detection method for Ethereum phishing attacks based on multi-dimensional transaction features
Abstract
Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies have attracted significant attention in recent years, yet remain susceptible to cyber threats such as phishing attacks. Existing detection approaches often suffer from high computational costs and limited robustness, especially when facing varying data distributions and sparse structures. To address these issues, we propose Robust, Node behavior, Transaction structure, and Network (R-NTN), a detection framework for Ethereum phishing accounts that leverages multi-dimensional transaction features. R-NTN first constructs 2-hop ego graphs via random walks, then extracts features from three complementary dimensions: behavioral attributes, transaction-based structural features, and network embeddings. These features are integrated into a unified representation for downstream classification. Experiments show that R-NTN consistently outperforms baseline methods and maintains high accuracy across datasets of different scales and compositions, demonstrating strong robustness and generalizability.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Spam and Phishing Detection
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- PeerJ Computer Science
- Volume
- 12
- Pages
- e3445–e3445
- Publication date
- 13 January 2026
- Language
- EN