An Insight into the Machine-Learning-Based Fileless Malware Detection

In recent years, massive development in the malware industry changed the entire landscape for malware development. Therefore, cybercriminals became more sophisticated by advancing their development techniques from file-based to fileless malware. As file-based malware depends on files to spread itself, on the other hand, fileless malware does not require a traditional file system and uses benign processes to carry out its malicious intent. Therefore, it evades conventional detection techniques and remains stealthy. This paper briefly explains fileless malware, its life cycle, and its infection chain. Moreover, it proposes a detection technique based on feature analysis using machine learning for fileless malware detection. The virtual machine acquired the memory dumps upon executing the malicious and non-malicious samples. Then the necessary features are extracted using the Volatility memory forensics tool, which is then analyzed using machine learning classification algorithms. After that, the best algorithm is selected based on the k-fold cross-validation score. Experimental evaluation has shown that Random Forest outperforms other machine learning classifiers (Decision Tree, Support Vector Machine, Logistic Regression, K-Nearest Neighbor, XGBoost, and Gradient Boosting). It achieved an overall accuracy of 93.33% with a True Positive Rate (TPR) of 87.5% at zeroFalse Positive Rate (FPR) for fileless malware collected from five widely used datasets (VirusShare, AnyRun, PolySwarm, HatchingTriage, and JoESadbox)

Getting Smarter about Smart Cities: Improving Data Security and Privacy through Compliance

Smart cities assure the masses a higher quality of life through digital interconnectivity, leading to increased efficiency and accessibility in cities. In addition, a huge amount of data is being exchanged through smart devices, networks, cloud infrastructure, big data analysis and Internet of Things (IoT) applications in the various private and public sectors, such as critical infrastructures, financial sectors, healthcare, and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). However, these sectors require maintaining certain security mechanisms to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of personal and critical information. However, unfortunately, organizations fail to maintain their security posture in terms of security mechanisms and controls, which leads to data breach incidents either intentionally or inadvertently due to the vulnerabilities in their information management systems that either malicious insiders or attackers exploit. In this paper, we highlight the importance of data breaches and issues related to information leakage incidents. In particular, the impact of data breaching incidents and the reasons contributing to such incidents affect the citizens’ well-being. In addition, this paper also discusses various preventive measures such as security mechanisms, laws, standards, procedures, and best practices, including follow-up mitigation strategies

A Sentiment Analysis Approach to Predict an Individual’s Awareness of the Precautionary Procedures to Prevent COVID-19 Outbreaks in Saudi Arabia

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a pandemic, which affected all countries worldwide. During the outbreak, public sentiment analyses contributed valuable information toward making appropriate public health responses. This study aims to develop a model that predicts an individual’s awareness of the precautionary procedures in five main regions in Saudi Arabia. In this study, a dataset of Arabic COVID-19 related tweets was collected, which fell in the period of the curfew. The dataset was processed, based on several machine learning predictive models: Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbors (KNN), and Naïve Bayes (NB), along with the N-gram feature extraction technique. The results show that applying the SVM classifier along with bigram in Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) outperformed other models with an accuracy of 85%. The results of awareness prediction showed that the south region observed the highest level of awareness towards COVID-19 containment measures, whereas the middle region was the least. The proposed model can support the medical sectors and decision-makers to decide the appropriate procedures for each region based on their attitudes towards the pandemic

An Empirical Study of Mobile Commerce and Customers Security Perception in Saudi Arabia

Digital transformation of businesses has seen tremendous growth recently, moreover, COVID-19 has increased online shopping. However, it is important for businesses that customers’ online shopping experience is secure and joyful. In this paper, customers’ security perception regarding some leading mobile commerce applications in Saudi Arabia is explored. Our survey questions focused on three aspects, namely: Consumer rating, trustworthiness, and credit card security. The results highlight that consumers perceive that mobile commerce applications in Saudi Arabia need further improvement in security. In this work, a model to improve customers’ security perception in Saudi Arabia is presented. This model can be generalized to other geographical regions as well. The model outlines different actions for practitioners and policymakers that help in improving security infrastructure, authentication mechanisms, and trustworthiness

Prediction of Preeclampsia Using Machine Learning and Deep Learning Models: A Review

Preeclampsia is one of the illnesses associated with placental dysfunction and pregnancy-induced hypertension, which appears after the first 20 weeks of pregnancy and is marked by proteinuria and hypertension. It can affect pregnant women and limit fetal growth, resulting in low birth weights, a risk factor for neonatal mortality. Approximately 10% of pregnancies worldwide are affected by hypertensive disorders during pregnancy. In this review, we discuss the machine learning and deep learning methods for preeclampsia prediction that were published between 2018 and 2022. Many models have been created using a variety of data types, including demographic and clinical data. We determined the techniques that successfully predicted preeclampsia. The methods that were used the most are random forest, support vector machine, and artificial neural network (ANN). In addition, the prospects and challenges in preeclampsia prediction are discussed to boost the research on artificial intelligence systems, allowing academics and practitioners to improve their methods and advance automated prediction

SARS-CoV-2 vaccination modelling for safe surgery to save lives: data from an international prospective cohort study

Background: Preoperative SARS-CoV-2 vaccination could support safer elective surgery. Vaccine numbers are limited so this study aimed to inform their prioritization by modelling. Methods: The primary outcome was the number needed to vaccinate (NNV) to prevent one COVID-19-related death in 1 year. NNVs were based on postoperative SARS-CoV-2 rates and mortality in an international cohort study (surgical patients), and community SARS-CoV-2 incidence and case fatality data (general population). NNV estimates were stratified by age (18-49, 50-69, 70 or more years) and type of surgery. Best- and worst-case scenarios were used to describe uncertainty. Results: NNVs were more favourable in surgical patients than the general population. The most favourable NNVs were in patients aged 70 years or more needing cancer surgery (351; best case 196, worst case 816) or non-cancer surgery (733; best case 407, worst case 1664). Both exceeded the NNV in the general population (1840; best case 1196, worst case 3066). NNVs for surgical patients remained favourable at a range of SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates in sensitivity analysis modelling. Globally, prioritizing preoperative vaccination of patients needing elective surgery ahead of the general population could prevent an additional 58 687 (best case 115 007, worst case 20 177) COVID-19-related deaths in 1 year. Conclusion: As global roll out of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination proceeds, patients needing elective surgery should be prioritized ahead of the general population