SecTalks Gold Coast 3x7 - August 2026 - Exploring Malware Evolution Through ML

Title: Exploring Malware Evolution Through Machine Learning presented by Terrell Jensen.

Abstract:
Traditional malware analysis often focuses on identifying what a sample is and which family it belongs to. This project explores a different question: can we use machine learning to better understand how malware evolves over time?

From Terrell - "WedgeTail is my research project in which I have been investigating malware lineage and evolutionary intelligence by analysing features extracted from binaries, including API behaviour, strings, PE metadata, and opcode sequences. The goal is to explore whether machine learning techniques can identify relationships between samples, map possible lineage, and surface trends across malware ecosystems.

The talk would cover the technical approach behind the project, including feature extraction, embeddings, similarity analysis, and the challenges of applying ML to adversarial software. I’ll also discuss lessons learned, limitations, and where this type of approach could go in the future."

Drinks are provided by our sponsor, Solis, and pizza is provided by Cyber Audit Team. As usual, our venue is sponsored by COHORT.

GC SecTalks maintains a strict Code of Conduct.