Developing Proactive Measures Against Increasingly Sophisticated Ransomware-asa-Service (RaaS) Attacks

Kedare, Aryan (2025) Developing Proactive Measures Against Increasingly Sophisticated Ransomware-asa-Service (RaaS) Attacks. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

The rise of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) has changed the cyber threat environment by enabling even unskilled individuals to conduct highly advanced ransomware attacks. This research introduces a proactive and multilayered protection mechanism designed to identify and alleviate such risks prior to encryption. The proposed system integrates a machine learning-based behavioral classifier, heuristic analysis and real-time defensive responses including Hash Concealment and Zero Trust Enforcement. A virtualized sandbox environment was used to simulate both benign and malicious activities, from which a balanced dataset was created. A Random Forest model trained on pre-encryption behavior achieved 99.7% accuracy, effectively detecting ransomware types such as encryption-based, shadow-copy wipers and C2/leak site variants. Heuristic rules added interpretability by classifying attacks based on file extensions, process indicators and dark web communication traces. After detection automatic file concealment and restricted access were triggered to minimize damage. The model performed with zero false positives during very intensive benign tasks and successful file recovery after the detection. While this is effective, challenges remain in detecting stealthy or advanced variants and reducing the latency of detection. The study suggests that trained AI when combined with lightweight automated defenses it offers an effective and efficient real-time response to RaaS threats establishing a robust basis for enterprise-level implementation and additional research.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Supervisors:	Name Email Aleburu, Joel UNSPECIFIED
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > Electronic computers. Computer science T Technology > T Technology (General) > Information Technology > Electronic computers. Computer science Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology > Methods of research. Technique. Experimental biology > Data processing. Bioinformatics > Artificial intelligence Q Science > Q Science (General) > Self-organizing systems. Conscious automata > Artificial intelligence Q Science > QA Mathematics > Computer software > Computer Security T Technology > T Technology (General) > Information Technology > Computer software > Computer Security
Divisions:	School of Computing > Master of Science in Cyber Security
Depositing User:	Ciara O'Brien
Date Deposited:	17 Aug 2026 15:07
Last Modified:	17 Aug 2026 15:07
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/9537

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