A Research and Development Portfolio of GNN Centric Malware Detection, Explainability, and Dataset Curation

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shokouhinejad, Hossein, Higgins, Griffin, Razavi-Far, Roozbeh, Ghorbani, Ali A.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917105193975808
author Shokouhinejad, Hossein
Higgins, Griffin
Razavi-Far, Roozbeh
Ghorbani, Ali A.
author_facet Shokouhinejad, Hossein
Higgins, Griffin
Razavi-Far, Roozbeh
Ghorbani, Ali A.
contents Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have become an effective tool for malware detection by capturing program execution through graph-structured representations. However, important challenges remain regarding scalability, interpretability, and the availability of reliable datasets. This paper brings together six related studies that collectively address these issues. The portfolio begins with a survey of graph-based malware detection and explainability, then advances to new graph reduction methods, integrated reduction-learning approaches, and investigations into the consistency of explanations. It also introduces dual explanation techniques based on subgraph matching and develops ensemble-based models with attention-guided stacked GNNs to improve interpretability. In parallel, curated datasets of control flow graphs are released to support reproducibility and enable future research. Together, these contributions form a coherent line of research that strengthens GNN-based malware detection by enhancing efficiency, increasing transparency, and providing solid experimental foundations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_20801
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Research and Development Portfolio of GNN Centric Malware Detection, Explainability, and Dataset Curation
Shokouhinejad, Hossein
Higgins, Griffin
Razavi-Far, Roozbeh
Ghorbani, Ali A.
Cryptography and Security
Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have become an effective tool for malware detection by capturing program execution through graph-structured representations. However, important challenges remain regarding scalability, interpretability, and the availability of reliable datasets. This paper brings together six related studies that collectively address these issues. The portfolio begins with a survey of graph-based malware detection and explainability, then advances to new graph reduction methods, integrated reduction-learning approaches, and investigations into the consistency of explanations. It also introduces dual explanation techniques based on subgraph matching and develops ensemble-based models with attention-guided stacked GNNs to improve interpretability. In parallel, curated datasets of control flow graphs are released to support reproducibility and enable future research. Together, these contributions form a coherent line of research that strengthens GNN-based malware detection by enhancing efficiency, increasing transparency, and providing solid experimental foundations.
title A Research and Development Portfolio of GNN Centric Malware Detection, Explainability, and Dataset Curation
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.20801