Image-Based Malware Classification with Convolutional Neural Networks and Extreme Learning Machines

Research in the field of malware classification often relies on machine learning models that are trained on high level features, such as opcodes, function calls, and control flow graphs. Extracting such features is costly, since disassembly or code execution is generally required. In this research, we conduct experiments to train and evaluate machine learning models for malware classification, based on features that can be obtained without disassembly or execution of code. Specifically, we visualize malware samples as images and employ image analysis techniques. In this context, we focus on two machine learning models, namely, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Extreme Learning Machines (ELM). Surprisingly, we find that ELMs can yield comparable results to CNNs, yet ELMs are far more efficient to train