The field of cybersecurity is witnessing significant advancements in steganography and phishing defense. Researchers are exploring innovative methods to conceal and detect malicious content, blurring the lines between static images and executable code. A notable trend is the development of novel steganography techniques that exploit vulnerabilities in web browsers and image files, allowing attackers to embed malicious payloads in seemingly innocuous content. Meanwhile, efforts to combat phishing attacks are focusing on improving transparency and visual similarity-based detection protocols. The creation of large-scale, high-quality datasets and benchmarks is also facilitating the development of more effective phishing detection models. Noteworthy papers include:

• A study on executable steganography via ICO alpha channel exploitation, which demonstrates a stealthy and reusable attack surface.
• The introduction of PhreshPhish, a large-scale phishing website dataset and benchmark, which addresses the limitations of existing datasets and provides a comprehensive suite of benchmark datasets for realistic model evaluation.