A study on variable selection and classification in dynamic analysis data for ransomware detection

Attacking computer systems using ransomware is very common all over the world. Since antivirus and detection methods are constantly improved in order to detect and mitigate ransomware, the ransomware itself becomes equally better to avoid detection. Several new methods are implemented and tested in order to optimize the protection against ransomware. In our work, 582 of ransomware and 942 of normalware sample data along with 30,967 dynamic action sequence variables are used to detect ransomware efficiently. Several variable selection techniques combined with various machine learning based classification techniques are tried to protect systems from ransomwares. Among various combinations, chi-square variable selection and random forest gives the best detection rates and accuracy.