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Article
Detection of drive-by download attacks using machine learning approach
International Journal of Information Security and Privacy
  • Monther Aldwairi, Jordan University of Science and Technology
  • Musaab Hasan, Zayed University
  • Zayed Balbahaith, Zayed University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-1-2017
Abstract

Copyright © 2017, IGI Global. Drive-by download refers to attacks that automatically download malwares to user's computer without his knowledge or consent. This type of attack is accomplished by exploiting web browsers and plugins vulnerabilities. The damage may include data leakage leading to financial loss. Traditional antivirus and intrusion detection systems are not efficient against such attacks. Researchers proposed plenty of detection approaches mostly passive blacklisting. However, a few proposed dynamic classification techniques, which suffer from clear shortcomings. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to detect drive-by download infected web pages based on extracted features from their source code. We test 23 different machine learning classifiers using data set of 5435 webpages and based on the detection accuracy we selected the top five to build our detection model. The approach is expected to serve as a base for implementing and developing anti drive-by download programs. We develop a graphical user interface program to allow the end user to examine the URL before visiting the website. The Bagged Trees classifier exhibited the highest accuracy of 90.1% and reported 96.24% true positive and 26.07% false positive rate.

Publisher
IGI Global
Disciplines
Keywords
  • Browser Exploits,
  • Drive-by Downloads,
  • Malware Detection,
  • Plugin Exploits,
  • URL Classification,
  • Web Client Exploits
Scopus ID
85028690822
Indexed in Scopus
Yes
Open Access
No
https://doi.org/10.4018/IJISP.2017100102
Citation Information
Monther Aldwairi, Musaab Hasan and Zayed Balbahaith. "Detection of drive-by download attacks using machine learning approach" International Journal of Information Security and Privacy Vol. 11 Iss. 4 (2017) p. 16 - 28 ISSN: <a href="https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/issn/1930-1650" target="_blank">1930-1650</a>
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/monther-aldwairi/14/