These PV Grads have created the next best AI tool to combat global phishing attacks

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – Prairie View A&M University students have come up with an answer for people sick of the 3.4 billion phishing attempts sent daily.

A team of four — Omar El Miloudi, Amina Jade Washington, Ryan Keith Linton and Wali Mohmmed Siddiqui — all graduating seniors, developed GoldPhish, a Google Chrome extension that detects phishing emails in real time with 98.16% accuracy in testing. The application integrates directly with Gmail to flag potentially harmful messages as users read them.

“Everyone on the team had seen someone fall for a phishing email, whether a family member, a coworker, a professor,” the developers said. “We looked at the landscape and realized the tools that existed were either enterprise-only, required subscriptions, or only caught threats they already knew about. We wanted to build something smarter, free and accessible to anyone.”

The team had identified phishing as a common issue affecting everyone and aimed to create a solution that operates directly at the point of interaction—the email inbox—rather than relying on external systems.

The team won first place at PVAMU Student Research Day in April. “Together, the four seniors are stepping into the tech industry with a project already tackling a real-world cybersecurity threat.”

El Miloudi, a Houston native pursuing a bachelor’s in computer science, led the team as product engineer.

While attending PVAMU, he earned the title of “Most Outstanding Computer Science Student” and was a member of the University Honors College, where he worked closely with Dean Dr. Quincy C. Moore III. El Miloudi said Dr. Moore’s support and encouragement helped him leave a lasting impact, ultimately inspiring the development of GoldPhish. He has also been part of extracurriculars, such as the Data Science Club, which he says “brought together so many smart and passionate individuals hoping to leave an impact in our domains of technology.”

El Miloudi, who has interned at Electronic Arts, Cisco, Oracle, and MongoDB, will be headed to Dell Technologies after graduation this Saturday.

From internships to be part of the ACM and Data Science Club at PVAMU, he said, “These experiences collectively shaped me into the man I am today, and I cannot wait to come back to campus after graduation and work together with the next generation of bright tech scholars.”

Linton, a software engineer who contributed to backend development, is headed to Amazon after graduation, where he previously interned alongside Google.

The Houston native, earning dual bachelor’s degrees in computer science and mathematics, has been a part of many organizations on campus, including the National Society of Black Engineers, the Association for Computing Machinery, Black Data Processing Associates, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Men Achieving Leadership Excellence, and the University Honors Program.

“These organizations helped me develop leadership, communication, and mentorship skills while building a strong professional network,” Linton said.

He imagines his next chapter will be as meaningful, building impactful technology like GoldPhish and expanding his footprint in the tech world.

Washington was the UX designer on the team, developing the user experience. She has also served as secretary and vice president of the Cybersecurity Club and was a Student Leader for the Apple HBCU C² Program.

“Through these roles, I grew into understanding what it truly means to be part of a team,” Washington said. “I learned how to collaborate and lead with purpose while contributing to something bigger than myself.”

Washington, a San Antonio native pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a concentration in cybersecurity and a minor in mathematics, has interned at Uber, Albemarle, and ServiceNow, where she is headed after graduation.

“During my time at PVAMU, I have grown into someone who no longer limits what I believe I am capable of. I’ve become more confident in my abilities and more open to taking on challenges that push me to grow,” she said, encouraging other students to step outside their comfort zones.

Siddiqui, a first-generation college student from The Woodlands, is earning a bachelor’s in computer science. He called winning first place on Research Day “unforgettable.”

Through internships at Collins Aerospace, he has worked on software for Boeing’s commercial fleet and will join Fidelity Investments after graduation.

“The advice I would give to new students is to build meaningful connections with those you sit next to in class,” Siddiqui said. “Make group chats, communicate, and study together. Building friendships with like-minded people will help propel you toward success.”

GoldPhish, operating as a browser-based extension, analyzes email content using a TF-IDF and Logistic Regression model trained on the SpamAssassin corpus, and assigns a risk score ranging from 0 to 100.

GoldPhish is designed for everyday users so that anyone can use it, and it features a GenAI-powered explanation of why an email was flagged, delivering a one-click risk score to help users quickly assess threats.

Developers explained that it catches threats “with context” from the inbox, relying on a machine-learning model trained on over 50,000 real emails.

GoldPhish is currently deployed and functional, and its developers plan to pursue provisional patents next.

Their creation has endless potential – emails are used everywhere.

Every company, organization, institution, and university needs a workable cybersecurity defense, and GoldPhish is a simple yet effective solution.

“We envision a future licensing model where universities (and enterprises, or other organizations) deploy GoldPhish to their users as a first line of intelligent defense,” the bright entrepreneurs said.

For them, graduation is only their start line – and they’re ready to make their mark on the world with one accessible, people-friendly technology solution at a time.

View the Google Chrome Webstore for GoldPhish via this link.

Click here to view a complete listing of this semester’s notable graduates.

By Christine Won

-PVAMU-