Inspiration
We were inspired by the Colombian saying “el pez muere por la boca” (the fish dies by its mouth), which felt like a perfect metaphor for phishing attacks. In our project, we took this literally—representing users as the fish, and malicious emails as the bait. The idea is to help users avoid biting the hook.
What it does
Our Chrome extension identifies fraudulent emails in real time. When an email is flagged as suspicious, the extension pops up a visual alert—reminding users not to take the bait.
How we built it
We built a Chrome extension using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
To detect phishing, we integrated Google Gemini API which analyzes the content of emails and determines whether they are likely to be malicious.
The front end displays alerts when risky emails are detected.
Challenges we ran into
- We didn’t know how to build a UI and had never worked in frontend before.
- Connecting and integrating the Gemini API was also a challenge.
- We had to learn how Chrome extensions work and how to manage the local environment quickly.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- We got the extension to work end-to-end
- Successfully connected to the Gemini API and flagged suspicious content
- Brought a creative idea to life in a short amount of time
What we learned
We learned that time constraints force you to focus on what matters. It’s okay to not have everything figured out.
We stopped trying to build the perfect demo and instead asked the right questions to help us prioritize the core features.
What's next for Don’t Bite!
We want to improve detection accuracy and expand the system to recognize various types of attacks like:
- Phishing
- Spoofing
- Man-in-the-middle attacks
- Email impersonation
We'll also refine the UI and integrate more educational prompts for users to help them stay informed.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.