RMDNet-Deep Learning Paradigms for Effective Malware Detection and Classification

Abstract

Malware analysis and detection are still essential for maintaining the security of networks and computer systems, even as the threat landscape shifts. Traditional approaches are insufficient to keep pace with the rapidly evolving nature of malware. Artificial Intelligence (AI) assumes a significant role in propelling its design to unprecedented levels. Various Machine Learning (ML) based malware detection systems have been developed to combat the ever-changing characteristics of malware. Consequently, there is a growing interest in exploring advanced techniques that leverage the power of Deep Learning (DL) to effectively analyze and detect malicious software. DL models demonstrate enhanced capabilities for analyzing extensive sequences of system calls. This paper proposes a Robust Malware Detection Network (RMDNet) for effective malware detection and classification. The proposed RMDNet model branches the input and performs depth-wise convolution and concatenation operations. The experimental results of the proposed RMDNet and existing DL models are evaluated on 48240 malware and binary visualization image dataset with RGB format. Also on the multi-class malimg and dumpware-10 datasets with grayscale format. The experimental results on each of these datasets demonstrate that the proposed RMDNet model can effectively and accurately categorize malware, outperforming the most recent benchmark DL algorithms.