Malicious Code Detection Using Machine Learning

Abstract

Abstract: Malware, derived from "Malicious software," is a comprehensive term encompassing any software intentionally crafted to disrupt, damage, or illicitly access computer systems. It's critical to determine whether a file includes malware. The increase in malware is causing a lot of problems for businesses, including data loss and other problems. Malware can swiftly inflict significant damage to a system by slowing it down and encrypting a sizable amount of data on a personal computer. This suggests that lowering the number of false positives is important. A comprehensive description of the adaptable framework for machine learning algorithms may be found in this study. It is possible to detect malware with these methods. The justification for this is that these algorithms simplify the process of distinguishing between files that are infected with malware and those that are not. Modern antivirus and anti-malware tools offer effective protection against various malware attacks. Nevertheless, due to the constantly changing landscape of malicious activities, it is imperative to curate an up-to-date database of previous malware instances. This repository serves as a valuable resource for anticipating the characteristics of future attacks and facilitating swift responses. Different machine learning methods, including decision trees and random forests, are used in our malware detection process. The method with the highest accuracy is chosen, giving the system an excellent detection ratio. Additionally, the confusion matrix is used to calculate the false positive and false negative rates, which is how the system's performance is determined.