Lightweight detection method of obfuscated landing sites based on the AST structure and tokens

Abstract

Attackers use a variety of techniques to insert redirection JavaScript that leads a user to a malicious webpage, where a drive-by-download attack is executed. In particular, the redirection JavaScript in the landing site is obfuscated to avoid detection systems. In this paper, we propose a lightweight detection system based on static analysis to classify the obfuscation type and to promptly detect the obfuscated redirection JavaScript. The proposed model detects the obfuscated redirection JavaScript by converting the JavaScript into an abstract syntax tree (AST). Then, the structure and token information are extracted. Specifically, we propose a lightweight AST to identify the obfuscation type and the revised term frequency-inverse document frequency to efficiently detect the malicious redirection JavaScript. This approach enables rapid identification of the obfuscated redirection JavaScript and proactive blocking of the webpages that are used in drive-by-download attacks. © 2020 by the authors.