Chinese Journal of Network and Information Security ›› 2023, Vol. 9 ›› Issue (5): 1-20.doi: 10.11959/j.issn.2096-109x.2023064

• Comprehensive Review •    

Review of malware detection and classification visualization techniques

Jinwei WANG1,2,3, Zhengjia CHEN1,2, Xue XIE4,5, Xiangyang LUO6, Bin MA7   

  1. 1 Engineering Research Center of Digital Forensics, Ministry of Education, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
    2 Department of Computer, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
    3 State Key Laboratory of Mathematical Engineering and Advanced Computing, Zhengzhou 450001, China
    4 University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230031, China
    5 China Aerospace Academy of Systems Science and Engineering, Beijing 100048, China
    6 Information Engineering University, Zhengzhou 450001, China
    7 School of Cyberspace Security, Qilu University of Technology, Jinan 250353, China
  • Revised:2023-08-10 Online:2023-10-01 Published:2023-10-01
  • Supported by:
    The National Natural Science Foundation of China(62072250);The National Natural Science Foundation of China(62172435);The National Natural Science Foundation of China(U1804263);The National Natural Science Foundation of China(U20B2065);The National Natural Science Foundation of China(61872203);The National Natural Science Foundation of China(71802110);The National Natural Science Foundation of China(61802212);The Leading Talents Program of Scientific and Technological Innovation in Henan Province(214200510019);The Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation(BK20200750);The Open Fund of the Key Laboratory of Network Space Situation Awareness(HNTS2022002);The Graduate Student Research and Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province(KYCX200974);The Open Project of Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Information Security Technology(2020B1212060078);The Open Re-search Fund of Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Computer Networks(SDKLCN-2022-05)

Abstract:

With the rapid advancement of technology, network security faces a significant challenge due to the proliferation of malicious software and its variants.These malicious software use various technical tactics to deceive or bypass traditional detection methods, rendering conventional non-visual detection techniques inadequate.In recent years, data visualization has gained considerable attention in the academic community as a powerful approach for detecting and classifying malicious software.By visually representing the key features of malicious software, these methods greatly enhance the accuracy of malware detection and classification, opening up extensive research opportunities in the field of cyber security.An overview of traditional non-visual detection techniques and visualization-based methods were provided in the realm of malicious software detection.Traditional non-visual approaches for malicious software detection, including static analysis, dynamic analysis, and hybrid techniques, were introduced.Subsequently, a comprehensive survey and evaluation of prominent contemporary visualization-based methods for detecting malicious software were undertaken.This primarily encompasses encompassed the integration of visualization with machine learning and visualization combined with deep learning, each of which exhibits distinct advantages and characteristics within the domain of malware detection and classification.Consequently, the holistic consideration of several factors, such as dataset size, computational resources, time constraints, model accuracy, and implementation complexity, is necessary for the selection of detection and classification methods.In conclusion, the challenges currently faced by detection technologies are summarized, and a forward-looking perspective on future research directions in the field is provided.

Key words: machine learning, deep learning, data visualization, malware detection and classification

CLC Number: 

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