In the face of increasing cyber threats, particularly ransomware attacks,
there is a pressing need for advanced detection and analysis systems that adapt
to evolving malware behaviours. Throughout the literature, using machine
learning (ML) to obviate ransomware attacks has increased in popularity.
Unfortunately, most of these proposals leverage non-incremental learning
approaches that require the underlying models to be updated from scratch to
detect new ransomware, wasting time and resources. This approach is problematic
because it leaves sensitive data vulnerable to attack during retraining, as
newly emerging ransomware strains may go undetected until the model is updated.
Furthermore, most of these approaches are not designed to detect ransomware in
real-time data streams, limiting their effectiveness in complex network
environments. To address this challenge, we present the Sysmon Incremental
Learning System for Ransomware Analysis and Detection (SILRAD), which enables
continuous updates to the underlying model and effectively closes the training
gap. By leveraging the capabilities of Sysmon for detailed monitoring of system
activities, our approach integrates online incremental learning techniques to
enhance the adaptability and efficiency of ransomware detection. The most
valuable features for detection were selected using the Pearson Correlation
Coefficient (PCC), and concept drift detection was implemented through the
ADWIN algorithm, ensuring that the model remains responsive to changes in
ransomware behaviour. We compared our results to other popular techniques, such
as Hoeffding Trees (HT) and Leveraging Bagging Classifier (LB), observing a
detection accuracy of 98.89% and a Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC) rate
of 94.11%, demonstrating the effectiveness of our technique.