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Researchers map Android Malware Genome
What to work out what will go wrong
Researchers at NC State have started the Android Malware Genome Project, which aims to get insecurity experts to collaborate. The big idea is that a project can examine Android Malware to chart characteristics and evolution in order to better defend against it.
Xuxian Jiang, the mastermind behind the Android Malware Genome Project, says defenses against this malware today are hampered by the lack of efficient access to samples. There is also a lack of understanding of the various malware families which hit Android.
The University's goal is to establish a better way of sharing malware samples and analysis, and developing better tools to fight it.
Jiang, who is assistant professor of computer science at North Carolina State University is in the process of fully mapping the genomes of Android malware families. He wants to open up the university's collection of Android malware samples and make them available to research community.
NC State has sent its malware research and data to several universities, research labs. So far Purdue University, the University of Michigan, the University of California, Riverside, Northwestern University, Fudan University in China, Texas A&M University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Beijing Jiaotong University in China, University of California, Berkeley, University of Texas at Dallas, Vienna University of Technology, Austria, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands, University of Washington, NQ Mobile, USA/China, and Mobile Defense have all signed up.
According to Dark Reading Tyler Shields, senior security researcher at Veracode, says the NC State project demonstrates how academia is trying to avoid the mistakes of the past with malware research. He said that they are trying to do what hasn't been done in the traditional AV world because AV vendors make money by keeping their research private.