Research Article

Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks

Volume: 17 Number: 3 October 17, 2026
TR EN

Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks

Abstract

Corporate email systems are a fundamental component of businesses' communication and business processes, but they also bring significant cybersecurity risks such as spam and phishing attacks. Especially as digitalization increases, the accurate and rapid detection of email-based threats faced by businesses has become a critical requirement. This research presents a comparative performance analysis of machine learning and transformer-based deep learning models for the automatic classification of spam, normal, and phishing messages. A large-scale, three-class dataset consisting of 479,466 English email records was used in the study. Traditional machine learning algorithms such as Support Vector Machines (SVM-LinearSVC), Logistic Regression (LR), Naive Bayes (NB), and Decision Tree (DT) models, as well as transformer-based BERT, RoBERTa, and ELECTRA models, were evaluated. The performance of the models was analyzed using accuracy, precision, recall, F1-Score, ROC-AUC, and confusion matrix metrics. In addition, statistical comparisons, phishing-specific security errors, cost-sensitive scenarios, and computational efficiency were evaluated to provide a more comprehensive assessment of model performance. Transformer-based models generally achieved stronger overall and class-specific classification performance, while conventional machine learning models offered substantially lower computational requirements. BERT achieved the highest overall performance, with 98.84% accuracy and a Macro F1-Score of 0.9827, while RoBERTa produced statistically comparable results. Security-oriented and computational analyses further showed that the model with the highest aggregate performance was not necessarily optimal for all deployment scenarios, highlighting the importance of considering misclassification consequences, computational requirements, email traffic volume, and available infrastructure in model selection. It is considered that the research contributes to the literature on email security and AI-based cyber risk management through models developed using a large-scale, three-class dataset, diverse AI architectures, and security-oriented evaluation criteria.

Keywords

Ethical Statement

I declare that the prepared article is a study that does not require ethics committee approval and/or legal/special permission.

References

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Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Deep Learning, Machine Learning (Other), Natural Language Processing, Planning and Decision Making

Journal Section

Research Article

Publication Date

October 17, 2026

Submission Date

May 14, 2026

Acceptance Date

October 6, 2026

Published in Issue

Year 2026 Volume: 17 Number: 3

APA
Tepeli, M. (2026). Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks. Dicle Üniversitesi Mühendislik Fakültesi Mühendislik Dergisi, 17(3). https://doi.org/10.24012/dumf.1949394
AMA
1.Tepeli M. Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks. DUJE. 2026;17(3). doi:10.24012/dumf.1949394
Chicago
Tepeli, Mehmet. 2026. “Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks”. Dicle Üniversitesi Mühendislik Fakültesi Mühendislik Dergisi 17 (3). https://doi.org/10.24012/dumf.1949394.
EndNote
Tepeli M (October 1, 2026) Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks. Dicle Üniversitesi Mühendislik Fakültesi Mühendislik Dergisi 17 3
IEEE
[1]M. Tepeli, “Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks”, DUJE, vol. 17, no. 3, Oct. 2026, doi: 10.24012/dumf.1949394.
ISNAD
Tepeli, Mehmet. “Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks”. Dicle Üniversitesi Mühendislik Fakültesi Mühendislik Dergisi 17/3 (October 1, 2026). https://doi.org/10.24012/dumf.1949394.
JAMA
1.Tepeli M. Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks. DUJE. 2026;17. doi:10.24012/dumf.1949394.
MLA
Tepeli, Mehmet. “Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks”. Dicle Üniversitesi Mühendislik Fakültesi Mühendislik Dergisi, vol. 17, no. 3, Oct. 2026, doi:10.24012/dumf.1949394.
Vancouver
1.Mehmet Tepeli. Development and Comparative Analysis of AI-Based Classification Models for Mitigating Email-Related Cyber Risks. DUJE. 2026 Oct. 1;17(3). doi:10.24012/dumf.1949394