An Attention-Based Approach to Enhance the Detection and Classification of Android Malware

The dominance of Android in the global mobile market and the open development characteristics of this platform have resulted in a significant increase in malware.These malicious applications have become a serious concern to the security of Android systems.To address this problem,researchers have proposed several machine-learning models to detect and classify Android malware based on analyzing features extracted from Android samples.However,most existing studies have focused on the classification task and overlooked the feature selection process,which is crucial to reduce the training time and maintain or improve the classification results.The current paper proposes a new Android malware detection and classification approach that identifies the most important features to improve classification performance and reduce training time.The proposed approach consists of two main steps.First,a feature selection method based on the Attention mechanism is used to select the most important features.Then,an optimized Light Gradient Boosting Machine(LightGBM)classifier is applied to classify the Android samples and identify the malware.The feature selection method proposed in this paper is to integrate an Attention layer into a multilayer perceptron neural network.The role of the Attention layer is to compute the weighted values of each feature based on its importance for the classification process.Experimental evaluation of the approach has shown that combining the Attention-based technique with an optimized classification algorithm for Android malware detection has improved the accuracy from 98.64%to 98.71%while reducing the training time from 80 to 28 s.

Detection and Prevention of Malware in Android Mobile Devices: A Literature Review

Despite only being around for a few years, mobile devices have steadily risen to become the most extensively used computer devices. Given the number of people who rely on smartphones, which can install third-party apps, it has become an increasingly important issue for end-users and service providers to ensure that both the devices and the underlying network are secure. People will become more reliant on applications such as SMS, MMS, Internet Access, Online Transactions, and so on due to such features and capabilities. Thousands of devices ranging from low-cost phones to high-end luxury phones are powered by the Android operating system, which has dominated the smartphone marketplace. It is about making it possible for people from all socioeconomic backgrounds to get and use mobile devices in their daily activities. In response to this growing popularity, the number of new applications introduced to the Android market has skyrocketed. The recent appearance of a wide range of mobile malware has caught the attention of security professionals and scholars alike. In light of the ongoing expansion of the mobile phone industry, the likelihood of it being used in criminal activities will only continue to rise in the future. This article reviews the literature on malware detection and prevention in Android mobile devices, analyzes the existing literature on major studies and tasks, and covers articles, journals, and digital resources such as Internet security publications, scientific studies, and conferences.

Outsmarting Android Malware with Cutting-Edge Feature Engineering and Machine Learning Techniques

The growing usage of Android smartphones has led to a significant rise in incidents of Android malware andprivacy breaches.This escalating security concern necessitates the development of advanced technologies capableof automatically detecting andmitigatingmalicious activities in Android applications(apps).Such technologies arecrucial for safeguarding user data and maintaining the integrity of mobile devices in an increasingly digital world.Current methods employed to detect sensitive data leaks in Android apps are hampered by two major limitationsthey require substantial computational resources and are prone to a high frequency of false positives.This meansthat while attempting to identify security breaches,these methods often consume considerable processing powerand mistakenly flag benign activities as malicious,leading to inefficiencies and reduced reliability in malwaredetection.The proposed approach includes a data preprocessing step that removes duplicate samples,managesunbalanced datasets,corrects inconsistencies,and imputes missing values to ensure data accuracy.The Minimaxmethod is then used to normalize numerical data,followed by feature vector extraction using the Gain ratio andChi-squared test to identify and extract the most significant characteristics using an appropriate prediction model.This study focuses on extracting a subset of attributes best suited for the task and recommending a predictivemodel based on domain expert opinion.The proposed method is evaluated using Drebin and TUANDROMDdatasets containing 15,036 and 4,464 benign and malicious samples,respectively.The empirical result shows thatthe RandomForest(RF)and Support VectorMachine(SVC)classifiers achieved impressive accuracy rates of 98.9%and 98.8%,respectively,in detecting unknown Androidmalware.A sensitivity analysis experiment was also carriedout on all three ML-based classifiers based on MAE,MSE,R2,and sensitivity parameters,resulting in a flawlessperformance for both datasets.This approach has substantial potential for real-world applications and can serve asa valuable tool for preventing the spread of Androidmalware and enhancing mobile device security.

An Empirical Study on the Effectiveness of Adversarial Examples in Malware Detection

Antivirus vendors and the research community employ Machine Learning(ML)or Deep Learning(DL)-based static analysis techniques for efficient identification of new threats,given the continual emergence of novel malware variants.On the other hand,numerous researchers have reported that Adversarial Examples(AEs),generated by manipulating previously detected malware,can successfully evade ML/DL-based classifiers.Commercial antivirus systems,in particular,have been identified as vulnerable to such AEs.This paper firstly focuses on conducting black-box attacks to circumvent ML/DL-based malware classifiers.Our attack method utilizes seven different perturbations,including Overlay Append,Section Append,and Break Checksum,capitalizing on the ambiguities present in the PE format,as previously employed in evasion attack research.By directly applying the perturbation techniques to PE binaries,our attack method eliminates the need to grapple with the problem-feature space dilemma,a persistent challenge in many evasion attack studies.Being a black-box attack,our method can generate AEs that successfully evade both DL-based and ML-based classifiers.Also,AEs generated by the attack method retain their executability and malicious behavior,eliminating the need for functionality verification.Through thorogh evaluations,we confirmed that the attack method achieves an evasion rate of 65.6%against well-known ML-based malware detectors and can reach a remarkable 99%evasion rate against well-known DL-based malware detectors.Furthermore,our AEs demonstrated the capability to bypass detection by 17%of vendors out of the 64 on VirusTotal(VT).In addition,we propose a defensive approach that utilizes Trend Locality Sensitive Hashing(TLSH)to construct a similarity-based defense model.Through several experiments on the approach,we verified that our defense model can effectively counter AEs generated by the perturbation techniques.In conclusion,our defense model alleviates the limitation of the most promising defense method,adversarial training,which is only effective against the AEs that are included in the training classifiers.

Covalent Bond Based Android Malware Detection Using Permission and System Call Pairs

The prevalence of smartphones is deeply embedded in modern society,impacting various aspects of our lives.Their versatility and functionalities have fundamentally changed how we communicate,work,seek entertainment,and access information.Among the many smartphones available,those operating on the Android platform dominate,being the most widely used type.This widespread adoption of the Android OS has significantly contributed to increased malware attacks targeting the Android ecosystem in recent years.Therefore,there is an urgent need to develop new methods for detecting Android malware.The literature contains numerous works related to Android malware detection.As far as our understanding extends,we are the first ones to identify dangerous combinations of permissions and system calls to uncover malicious behavior in Android applications.We introduce a novel methodology that pairs permissions and system calls to distinguish between benign and malicious samples.This approach combines the advantages of static and dynamic analysis,offering a more comprehensive understanding of an application’s behavior.We establish covalent bonds between permissions and system calls to assess their combined impact.We introduce a novel technique to determine these pairs’Covalent Bond Strength Score.Each pair is assigned two scores,one for malicious behavior and another for benign behavior.These scores serve as the basis for classifying applications as benign or malicious.By correlating permissions with system calls,the study enables a detailed examination of how an app utilizes its requested permissions,aiding in differentiating legitimate and potentially harmful actions.This comprehensive analysis provides a robust framework for Android malware detection,marking a significant contribution to the field.The results of our experiments demonstrate a remarkable overall accuracy of 97.5%,surpassing various state-of-the-art detection techniques proposed in the current literature.

Enhancing PDF Malware Detection through Logistic Model Trees

Malware is an ever-present and dynamic threat to networks and computer systems in cybersecurity,and because of its complexity and evasiveness,it is challenging to identify using traditional signature-based detection approaches.The study article discusses the growing danger to cybersecurity that malware hidden in PDF files poses,highlighting the shortcomings of conventional detection techniques and the difficulties presented by adversarial methodologies.The article presents a new method that improves PDF virus detection by using document analysis and a Logistic Model Tree.Using a dataset from the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity,a comparative analysis is carried out with well-known machine learning models,such as Credal Decision Tree,Naïve Bayes,Average One Dependency Estimator,Locally Weighted Learning,and Stochastic Gradient Descent.Beyond traditional structural and JavaScript-centric PDF analysis,the research makes a substantial contribution to the area by boosting precision and resilience in malware detection.The use of Logistic Model Tree,a thorough feature selection approach,and increased focus on PDF file attributes all contribute to the efficiency of PDF virus detection.The paper emphasizes Logistic Model Tree’s critical role in tackling increasing cybersecurity threats and proposes a viable answer to practical issues in the sector.The results reveal that the Logistic Model Tree is superior,with improved accuracy of 97.46%when compared to benchmark models,demonstrating its usefulness in addressing the ever-changing threat landscape.

DCEL:classifier fusion model for Android malware detection

The rapid growth of mobile applications,the popularity of the Android system and its openness have attracted many hackers and even criminals,who are creating lots of Android malware.However,the current methods of Android malware detection need a lot of time in the feature engineering phase.Furthermore,these models have the defects of low detection rate,high complexity,and poor practicability,etc.We analyze the Android malware samples,and the distribution of malware and benign software in application programming interface(API)calls,permissions,and other attributes.We classify the software’s threat levels based on the correlation of features.Then,we propose deep neural networks and convolutional neural networks with ensemble learning(DCEL),a new classifier fusion model for Android malware detection.First,DCEL preprocesses the malware data to remove redundant data,and converts the one-dimensional data into a two-dimensional gray image.Then,the ensemble learning approach is used to combine the deep neural network with the convolutional neural network,and the final classification results are obtained by voting on the prediction of each single classifier.Experiments based on the Drebin and Malgenome datasets show that compared with current state-of-art models,the proposed DCEL has a higher detection rate,higher recall rate,and lower computational cost.

A Low Complexity ML-Based Methods for Malware Classification

The article describes a new method for malware classification,based on a Machine Learning(ML)model architecture specifically designed for malware detection,enabling real-time and accurate malware identification.Using an innovative feature dimensionality reduction technique called the Interpolation-based Feature Dimensionality Reduction Technique(IFDRT),the authors have significantly reduced the feature space while retaining critical information necessary for malware classification.This technique optimizes the model’s performance and reduces computational requirements.The proposed method is demonstrated by applying it to the BODMAS malware dataset,which contains 57,293 malware samples and 77,142 benign samples,each with a 2381-feature vector.Through the IFDRT method,the dataset is transformed,reducing the number of features while maintaining essential data for accurate classification.The evaluation results show outstanding performance,with an F1 score of 0.984 and a high accuracy of 98.5%using only two reduced features.This demonstrates the method’s ability to classify malware samples accurately while minimizing processing time.The method allows for improving computational efficiency by reducing the feature space,which decreases the memory and time requirements for training and prediction.The new method’s effectiveness is confirmed by the calculations,which indicate significant improvements in malware classification accuracy and efficiency.The research results enhance existing malware detection techniques and can be applied in various cybersecurity applications,including real-timemalware detection on resource-constrained devices.Novelty and scientific contribution lie in the development of the IFDRT method,which provides a robust and efficient solution for feature reduction in ML-based malware classification,paving the way for more effective and scalable cybersecurity measures.

Fine-Tuning Cyber Security Defenses: Evaluating Supervised Machine Learning Classifiers for Windows Malware Detection

Malware attacks on Windows machines pose significant cybersecurity threats,necessitating effective detection and prevention mechanisms.Supervised machine learning classifiers have emerged as promising tools for malware detection.However,there remains a need for comprehensive studies that compare the performance of different classifiers specifically for Windows malware detection.Addressing this gap can provide valuable insights for enhancing cybersecurity strategies.While numerous studies have explored malware detection using machine learning techniques,there is a lack of systematic comparison of supervised classifiers for Windows malware detection.Understanding the relative effectiveness of these classifiers can inform the selection of optimal detection methods and improve overall security measures.This study aims to bridge the research gap by conducting a comparative analysis of supervised machine learning classifiers for detecting malware on Windows systems.The objectives include Investigating the performance of various classifiers,such as Gaussian Naïve Bayes,K Nearest Neighbors(KNN),Stochastic Gradient Descent Classifier(SGDC),and Decision Tree,in detecting Windows malware.Evaluating the accuracy,efficiency,and suitability of each classifier for real-world malware detection scenarios.Identifying the strengths and limitations of different classifiers to provide insights for cybersecurity practitioners and researchers.Offering recommendations for selecting the most effective classifier for Windows malware detection based on empirical evidence.The study employs a structured methodology consisting of several phases:exploratory data analysis,data preprocessing,model training,and evaluation.Exploratory data analysis involves understanding the dataset’s characteristics and identifying preprocessing requirements.Data preprocessing includes cleaning,feature encoding,dimensionality reduction,and optimization to prepare the data for training.Model training utilizes various supervised classifiers,and their performance is evaluated using metrics such as accuracy,precision,recall,and F1 score.The study’s outcomes comprise a comparative analysis of supervised machine learning classifiers for Windows malware detection.Results reveal the effectiveness and efficiency of each classifier in detecting different types of malware.Additionally,insights into their strengths and limitations provide practical guidance for enhancing cybersecurity defenses.Overall,this research contributes to advancing malware detection techniques and bolstering the security posture of Windows systems against evolving cyber threats.

Malware Detection Using Dual Siamese Network Model

This paper proposes a new approach to counter cyberattacks using the increasingly diverse malware in cyber security.Traditional signature detection methods that utilize static and dynamic features face limitations due to the continuous evolution and diversity of new malware.Recently,machine learning-based malware detection techniques,such as Convolutional Neural Networks(CNN)and Recurrent Neural Networks(RNN),have gained attention.While these methods demonstrate high performance by leveraging static and dynamic features,they are limited in detecting new malware or variants because they learn based on the characteristics of existing malware.To overcome these limitations,malware detection techniques employing One-Shot Learning and Few-Shot Learning have been introduced.Based on this,the Siamese Network,which can effectively learn from a small number of samples and perform predictions based on similarity rather than learning the characteristics of the input data,enables the detection of new malware or variants.We propose a dual Siamese network-based detection framework that utilizes byte images converted frommalware binary data to grayscale,and opcode frequency-based images generated after extracting opcodes and converting them into 2-gramfrequencies.The proposed framework integrates two independent Siamese network models,one learning from byte images and the other from opcode frequency-based images.The detection models trained on the different kinds of images generated separately apply the L1 distancemeasure to the output vectors themodels generate,calculate the similarity,and then apply different weights to each model.Our proposed framework achieved a malware detection accuracy of 95.9%and 99.83%in the experimentsusingdifferentmalware datasets.The experimental resultsdemonstrate that ourmalware detection model can effectively detect malware by utilizing two different types of features and employing the dual Siamese network-based model.

Modern Mobile Malware Detection Framework Using Machine Learning and Random Forest Algorithm

With the high level of proliferation of connected mobile devices,the risk of intrusion becomes higher.Artificial Intelligence(AI)and Machine Learning(ML)algorithms started to feature in protection software and showed effective results.These algorithms are nonetheless hindered by the lack of rich datasets and compounded by the appearance of new categories of malware such that the race between attackers’malware,especially with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence tools and protection solutions makes these systems and frameworks lose effectiveness quickly.In this article,we present a framework for mobile malware detection based on a new dataset containing new categories of mobile malware.We focus on categories of malware that were not tested before by Machine Learning algorithms proven effective in malware detection.We carefully select an optimal number of features,do necessary preprocessing,and then apply Machine Learning algorithms to discover malicious code effectively.From our experiments,we have found that the Random Forest algorithm is the best-performing algorithm with such mobile malware with detection rates of around 99%.We compared our results from this work and found that they are aligned well with our previous work.We also compared our work with State-of-the-Art works of others and found that the results are very close and competitive.

MaliFuzz:Adversarial Malware Detection Model for Defending Against Fuzzing Attack

With the prevalence of machine learning in malware defense,hackers have tried to attack machine learning models to evade detection.It is generally difficult to explore the details of malware detection models,hackers can adopt fuzzing attack to manipulate the features of the malware closer to benign programs on the premise of retaining their functions.In this paper,attack and defense methods on malware detection models based on machine learning algorithms were studied.Firstly,we designed a fuzzing attack method by randomly modifying features to evade detection.The fuzzing attack can effectively descend the accuracy of machine learning model with single feature.Then an adversarial malware detection model MaliFuzz is proposed to defend fuzzing attack.Different from the ordinary single feature detection model,the combined features by static and dynamic analysis to improve the defense ability are used.The experiment results show that the adversarial malware detection model with combined features can deal with the attack.The methods designed in this paper have great significance in improving the security of malware detection models and have good application prospects.

Malware Attacks Detection in IoT Using Recurrent Neural Network(RNN)

IoT(Internet of Things)devices are being used more and more in a variety of businesses and for a variety of tasks,such as environmental data collection in both civilian and military situations.They are a desirable attack target for malware intended to infect specific IoT devices due to their growing use in a variety of applications and their increasing computational and processing power.In this study,we investigate the possibility of detecting IoT malware using recurrent neural networks(RNNs).RNNis used in the proposed method to investigate the execution operation codes of ARM-based Internet of Things apps(OpCodes).To train our algorithms,we employ a dataset of IoT applications that includes 281 malicious and 270 benign pieces of software.The trained model is then put to the test using 100 brand-new IoT malware samples across three separate LSTM settings.Model exposure was not previously conducted on these samples.Detecting newly crafted malware samples with 2-layer neurons had the highest accuracy(98.18%)in the 10-fold cross validation experiment.A comparison of the LSTMtechnique to other machine learning classifiers shows that it yields the best results.

Android Malware Detection Using ResNet-50 Stacking

There has been an increase in attacks on mobile devices,such as smartphones and tablets,due to their growing popularity.Mobile malware is one of the most dangerous threats,causing both security breaches and financial losses.Mobile malware is likely to continue to evolve and proliferate to carry out a variety of cybercrimes on mobile devices.Mobile malware specifically targets Android operating system as it has grown in popularity.The rapid proliferation of Android malware apps poses a significant security risk to users,making static and manual analysis of malicious files difficult.Therefore,efficient identification and classification of Androidmalicious files is crucial.Several ConvolutionalNeuralNetwork(CNN)basedmethods have been proposed in this regard;however,there is still room for performance improvement.In this work,we propose a transfer learning and stacking approach to efficiently detect the Android malware files by utilizing two wellknown machine learning models,ResNet-50 and Support Vector Machine(SVM).The proposed model is trained on the DREBIN dataset by transforming malicious APK files into grayscale images.Our model yields higher performance measures than state-of-the-art works on the DREBIN dataset,where the reported measures are accuracy,recall,precision,and F1 measures of 97.8%,95.8%,95.7%,and 95.7%,respectively.

MMALE—A Methodology for Malware Analysis in Linux Environments

In a computer environment,an operating system is prone to malware,and even the Linux operating system is not an exception.In recent years,malware has evolved,and attackers have become more qualified compared to a few years ago.Furthermore,Linux-based systems have become more attractive to cybercriminals because of the increasing use of the Linux operating system in web servers and Internet of Things(IoT)devices.Windows is the most employed OS,so most of the research efforts have been focused on its malware protection rather than on other operating systems.As a result,hundreds of research articles,documents,and methodologies dedicated to malware analysis have been reported.However,there has not been much literature concerning Linux security and protection from malware.To address all these new challenges,it is necessary to develop a methodology that can standardize the required steps to perform the malware analysis in depth.A systematic analysis process makes the difference between good and ordinary malware analyses.Additionally,a deep malware comprehension can yield a faster and much more efficient malware eradication.In order to address all mentioned challenges,this article proposed a methodology for malware analysis in the Linux operating system,which is a traditionally overlooked field compared to the other operating systems.The proposed methodology is tested by a specific Linux malware,and the obtained test results have high effectiveness in malware detection.

A Survey on Visualization-Based Malware Detection

In computer security,the number of malware threats is increasing and causing damage to systems for individuals or organizations,necessitating a new detection technique capable of detecting a new variant of malware more efficiently than traditional anti-malware methods.Traditional antimalware software cannot detect new malware variants,and conventional techniques such as static analysis,dynamic analysis,and hybrid analysis are time-consuming and rely on domain experts.Visualization-based malware detection has recently gained popularity due to its accuracy,independence from domain experts,and faster detection time.Visualization-based malware detection uses the image representation of the malware binary and applies image processing techniques to the image.This paper aims to provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of malware detection and focuses on visualization-based malware detection.

An Effective Memory Analysis for Malware Detection and Classification

The study of malware behaviors,over the last years,has received tremendous attention from researchers for the purpose of reducing malware risks.Most of the investigating experiments are performed using either static analysis or behavior analysis.However,recent studies have shown that both analyses are vulnerable to modern malware files that use several techniques to avoid analysis and detection.Therefore,extracted features could be meaningless and a distraction for malware analysts.However,the volatile memory can expose useful information about malware behaviors and characteristics.In addition,memory analysis is capable of detecting unconventional malware,such as in-memory and fileless malware.However,memory features have not been fully utilized yet.Therefore,this work aims to present a new malware detection and classification approach that extracts memory-based features from memory images using memory forensic techniques.The extracted features can expose the malware’s real behaviors,such as interacting with the operating system,DLL and process injection,communicating with command and control site,and requesting higher privileges to perform specific tasks.We also applied feature engineering and converted the features to binary vectors before training and testing the classifiers.The experiments show that the proposed approach has a high classification accuracy rate of 98.5%and a false positive rate as low as 1.24%using the SVM classifier.The efficiency of the approach has been evaluated by comparing it with other related works.Also,a new memory-based dataset consisting of 2502 malware files and 966 benign samples forming 8898 features and belonging to six memory types has been created and published online for research purposes.

Malware安全可视化研究

由于传统的恶意程序分析过程往往复杂耗时,即使是经验丰富的安全分析人员也很难发现潜在的攻击模式。为减轻认知负担、提高交互性,将信息可视化技术引入恶意代码分析领域,即Malware安全可视化,正是近年来网络安全研究中的前沿热点。首先说明Malware安全可视化的紧迫性,接着分别从静态特征、动态主机特征和网络特征三个方面,详细分析了多项Malware安全可视化实例,最后讨论了该领域当前存在的问题及今后的研究方向。

A Novel Framework for Windows Malware Detection Using a Deep Learning Approach

Malicious software(malware)is one of the main cyber threats that organizations and Internet users are currently facing.Malware is a software code developed by cybercriminals for damage purposes,such as corrupting the system and data as well as stealing sensitive data.The damage caused by malware is substantially increasing every day.There is a need to detect malware efficiently and automatically and remove threats quickly from the systems.Although there are various approaches to tackle malware problems,their prevalence and stealthiness necessitate an effective method for the detection and prevention of malware attacks.The deep learning-based approach is recently gaining attention as a suitable method that effectively detects malware.In this paper,a novel approach based on deep learning for detecting malware proposed.Furthermore,the proposed approach deploys novel feature selection,feature co-relation,and feature representations to significantly reduce the feature space.The proposed approach has been evaluated using a Microsoft prediction dataset with samples of 21,736 malware composed of 9 malware families.It achieved 96.01%accuracy and outperformed the existing techniques of malware detection.

Explainable Classification Model for Android Malware Analysis Using API and Permission-Based Features

One of the most widely used smartphone operating systems,Android,is vulnerable to cutting-edge malware that employs sophisticated logic.Such malware attacks could lead to the execution of unauthorized acts on the victims’devices,stealing personal information and causing hardware damage.In previous studies,machine learning(ML)has shown its efficacy in detecting malware events and classifying their types.However,attackers are continuously developing more sophisticated methods to bypass detection.Therefore,up-to-date datasets must be utilized to implement proactive models for detecting malware events in Android mobile devices.Therefore,this study employed ML algorithms to classify Android applications into malware or goodware using permission and application programming interface(API)-based features from a recent dataset.To overcome the dataset imbalance issue,RandomOverSampler,synthetic minority oversampling with tomek links(SMOTETomek),and RandomUnderSampler were applied to the Dataset in different experiments.The results indicated that the extra tree(ET)classifier achieved the highest accuracy of 99.53%within an elapsed time of 0.0198 s in the experiment that utilized the RandomOverSampler technique.Furthermore,the explainable Artificial Intelligence(EAI)technique has been applied to add transparency to the high-performance ET classifier.The global explanation using the Shapely values indicated that the top three features contributing to the goodware class are:Ljava/net/URL;->openConnection,Landroid/location/LocationManager;->getLastKgoodwarewnLocation,and Vibrate.On the other hand,the top three features contributing to themalware class are Receive_Boot_Completed,Get_Tasks,and Kill_Background_Processes.It is believed that the proposedmodel can contribute to proactively detectingmalware events in Android devices to reduce the number of victims and increase users’trust.