Enhancing malware detection with feature selection and scaling techniques using machine learning models
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The increasing prevalence of malware presents a critical challenge to cybersecurity, emphasizing the need for robust detection methods. This study uses a binary tabular classification dataset to evaluate the impact of feature selection, feature scaling, and machine learning (ML) models on malware detection. The methodology involves experimenting with three feature scaling techniques (no scaling, normalization, and min-max scaling), three feature selection methods (no selection, Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and Principal Component Analysis (PCA)), and twelve ML models, including traditional algorithms and ensemble methods. A publicly available dataset with 11,598 samples and 139 features is utilized, and model performance is assessed using metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and AUC-ROC. Results reveal that the Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LGBM) achieves the highest accuracy of 97.16% when PCA and either min-max scaling or normalization are applied. Additionally, ensemble models consistently outperform traditional ML models, demonstrating their effectiveness in enhancing malware detection. These findings offer valuable insights into optimizing preprocessing and model selection strategies for developing reliable and efficient malware detection systems.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".