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Knowledge is Power: A Knowledge Graph-Based Approach for Mobile Malware Traceability Analysis

delete2026-03-16
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PRE
AI
Y
Yao Zhang
G
Guangquan Xu
R
Ruitao Feng
X
Xiaohong Li
S
Sen Chen
Z
Zhenchang Xing
Y
Yongqiang Lyu
W
Wei Gong
赵曦滨 (Xibin Zhao)
DOI:10.1109/tmc.2026.3673942delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
The prevalence of Android malware has brought forth the issue of traceability in malware analysis, prompting the need for exploration. Establishing connections between newly discovered malware and existing data can shed light on the traceability analysis and underlying reasons behind the malware. However, real-world analysis of malware traceability is intricate and time-consuming due to the vast volume of data, often requiring manual examination and lacking explanatory results. Hence, a comprehensive automated malware tracing framework is urgently needed to provide detailed insights into traceability identification and explanatory capabilities. This paper introduces a knowledge graph-based approach utilizing partial API call graphs with semantic and behavioral features to uncover traceability relations among malware and generate explainable results. The approach is based on a dataset comprising over 20,000 labeled malware samples from a decade, addressing complexity through prior knowledge utilization and a branch pruning method for call graphs. This reduces computational complexity and enhances precision in determining traceability relations. Rigorous evaluation and validation were conducted, assessing the system’s effectiveness in tracking malware through extensive experiments and results confirmation with further analysis. The system’s ability is validated by effectiveness, soundness, and practicality to demonstrate the value of approach design and its real-world applicability for security professionals.
Keywords:
Mobile malware
traceability
knowledge graph
API call graph
explainable analysis

Journal

IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing cover
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
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