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Topic 2.6 of Research Design and Literature Review

Reproducibility in Malware and Security Research

The difference between reproducible and replicable, and two documented cases -- Rossow et al.'s 2012 audit of 36 malware papers and the 2019 TESSERACT study -- showing how badly designed experiments inflate a headline accuracy figure.

~25 min total·4 quadrants of structured content

By the end of this topic, you will

Distinguish a reproducible finding from a replicable one
Explain what Rossow et al.'s 2012 audit found across 36 malware experiments and why it still matters
Define spatial bias and temporal bias and explain how each inflates a malware classifier's reported accuracy

Quadrant 1 · e-Tutorial

Video lectures and walkthroughs

Quadrant 2 · e-Content

Articles and case studies

research-methodology

Reproducibility in Malware and Security Research

A quarter of 36 published malware papers made questionable dataset assumptions; 71 percent described no safety precautions at all. Reproducibility failures in this field are not hypothetical -- they are documented, at scale.

10 min read

Quadrant 3 · Web Resources

Downloadable material and curated external links

Web resources coming soon.

Quadrant 4 · Self-Assessment

Test your knowledge — earn a certificate on first pass

Assessment coming soon.