Android malware detection via efficient application programming interface call sequences extraction and machine learning classifiers

Abstract Malware detection is an important task for the ecosystem of mobile applications (APPs), especially for the Android ecosystem, and is vital to guarantee the user experience of Android APPs. There have been some exiting methods trying to solve the problem of malware detection, but the methods...

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Main Authors: Tanjie Wang, Yueshen Xu, Xinkui Zhao, Zhiping Jiang, Rui Li
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2023-08-01
Series:IET Software
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1049/sfw2.12083
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author Tanjie Wang
Yueshen Xu
Xinkui Zhao
Zhiping Jiang
Rui Li
author_facet Tanjie Wang
Yueshen Xu
Xinkui Zhao
Zhiping Jiang
Rui Li
author_sort Tanjie Wang
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Malware detection is an important task for the ecosystem of mobile applications (APPs), especially for the Android ecosystem, and is vital to guarantee the user experience of Android APPs. There have been some exiting methods trying to solve the problem of malware detection, but the methods suffer from several defects, such as high time complexity and mediocre accuracy, which seriously decrease the practicability of existing methods. To solve these problems, in this study, we propose a novel Android malware detection framework, where we contribute an efficient Application Programming Interface (API) call sequences extraction algorithm and an investigation of different types of classifiers. In API call sequences extraction, we propose an algorithm for transforming the function call graph from a multigraph into a directed simple graph, which successfully avoids the unnecessary repetitive path searching. We also propose a pruning search, which further reduces the number of paths to be searched. Our algorithm greatly reduces the time complexity. We generate the transition matrix as classification features and investigate three types of machine learning classifiers to complete the malware detection task. The experiments are performed on real‐world Android Packages (APKs), and the results demonstrate that our method significantly reduces the running time and produces high detection accuracy.
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publishDate 2023-08-01
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series IET Software
spelling doaj-art-e86a6ddfa40d4e7baebd2fb44fce2ac82025-08-20T03:21:03ZengWileyIET Software1751-88061751-88142023-08-0117434836110.1049/sfw2.12083Android malware detection via efficient application programming interface call sequences extraction and machine learning classifiersTanjie Wang0Yueshen Xu1Xinkui Zhao2Zhiping Jiang3Rui Li4School of Computer Science and Technology Xidian University Xi'an ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Technology Xidian University Xi'an ChinaSchool of Software Technology Zhejiang University Ningbo ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Technology Xidian University Xi'an ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Technology Xidian University Xi'an ChinaAbstract Malware detection is an important task for the ecosystem of mobile applications (APPs), especially for the Android ecosystem, and is vital to guarantee the user experience of Android APPs. There have been some exiting methods trying to solve the problem of malware detection, but the methods suffer from several defects, such as high time complexity and mediocre accuracy, which seriously decrease the practicability of existing methods. To solve these problems, in this study, we propose a novel Android malware detection framework, where we contribute an efficient Application Programming Interface (API) call sequences extraction algorithm and an investigation of different types of classifiers. In API call sequences extraction, we propose an algorithm for transforming the function call graph from a multigraph into a directed simple graph, which successfully avoids the unnecessary repetitive path searching. We also propose a pruning search, which further reduces the number of paths to be searched. Our algorithm greatly reduces the time complexity. We generate the transition matrix as classification features and investigate three types of machine learning classifiers to complete the malware detection task. The experiments are performed on real‐world Android Packages (APKs), and the results demonstrate that our method significantly reduces the running time and produces high detection accuracy.https://doi.org/10.1049/sfw2.12083Android (operating system)computational complexitypattern classificationsoftware qualitysoftware reliability
spellingShingle Tanjie Wang
Yueshen Xu
Xinkui Zhao
Zhiping Jiang
Rui Li
Android malware detection via efficient application programming interface call sequences extraction and machine learning classifiers
IET Software
Android (operating system)
computational complexity
pattern classification
software quality
software reliability
title Android malware detection via efficient application programming interface call sequences extraction and machine learning classifiers
title_full Android malware detection via efficient application programming interface call sequences extraction and machine learning classifiers
title_fullStr Android malware detection via efficient application programming interface call sequences extraction and machine learning classifiers
title_full_unstemmed Android malware detection via efficient application programming interface call sequences extraction and machine learning classifiers
title_short Android malware detection via efficient application programming interface call sequences extraction and machine learning classifiers
title_sort android malware detection via efficient application programming interface call sequences extraction and machine learning classifiers
topic Android (operating system)
computational complexity
pattern classification
software quality
software reliability
url https://doi.org/10.1049/sfw2.12083
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AT xinkuizhao androidmalwaredetectionviaefficientapplicationprogramminginterfacecallsequencesextractionandmachinelearningclassifiers
AT zhipingjiang androidmalwaredetectionviaefficientapplicationprogramminginterfacecallsequencesextractionandmachinelearningclassifiers
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