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International Journal of Creative and Open Research in Engineering and Management

A Peer-Reviewed, Open-Access International Journal Supporting Multidisciplinary Research, Digital Publishing Standards, DOI Registration, and Academic Indexing.
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ISSN: 3108-1754 (Online)
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ISO Certification: 9001:2015
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License: CC BY 4.0
Peer Review: Double Blind
Volume 02, Issue 03

Published on: March 2026 2026

MACHINE LEARNING BASED FIRMWARE VULNERABILITY DETECTION USING OPCODE ANALYSIS

C. Siva Prasad U. Sai Vigneshwaran R. Senthil Kumar Dr. S. Subha

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering K.L.N. College of Engineering Pottapalayam Sivaganga district

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Plagiarism Passed Peer Reviewed Open Access

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Abstract

The rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) devices across smart homes, healthcare, agriculture, and industrial systems has increased the importance of firmware security. Firmware acts as the operational core of IoT devices, and vulnerabilities within it can lead to unauthorized access, data leakage, device malfunction, and large-scale cyberattacks. This study presents an IoT Firmware Vulnerability Detection System that identifies security risks in firmware files using a hybrid approach that combines machine learning with analytical feature-based assessment. The proposed system accepts firmware in BIN, HEX, and ELF formats and processes them through a structured workflow that includes file normalization, architecture detection, binary feature extraction, opcode analysis, and classification. Key features such as entropy, opcode diversity, string count, byte variance, and binary size are extracted to represent the behavioral characteristics of the firmware. These features are then analyzed using a Random Forest model to estimate vulnerability probability. To improve reliability and interpretability, the machine learning output is combined with heuristic risk scoring to classify firmware as safe, suspicious, or vulnerable. The results show that the hybrid framework provides effective and understandable vulnerability assessment while supporting multiple firmware types and architectures. The system also includes a user-oriented interface that presents risk scores, feature-based visualizations, and backend analysis logs for better transparency. This research is significant because it offers a practical, scalable, and explainable solution for strengthening IoT firmware security, supporting researchers, developers, and cybersecurity professionals in the early detection of firmware-level threats.

How to Cite this Paper

Prasad, C. S., Vigneshwaran, U. S., Kumar, R. S. & Subha, S. (2026). Machine Learning Based Firmware Vulnerability Detection Using Opcode Analysis. International Journal of Creative and Open Research in Engineering and Management, <i>02</i>(03). https://doi.org/10.55041/ijcope.v2i3.251

Prasad, C., et al.. "Machine Learning Based Firmware Vulnerability Detection Using Opcode Analysis." International Journal of Creative and Open Research in Engineering and Management, vol. 02, no. 03, 2026, pp. . doi:https://doi.org/10.55041/ijcope.v2i3.251.

Prasad, C.,U. Vigneshwaran,R. Kumar, and S. Subha. "Machine Learning Based Firmware Vulnerability Detection Using Opcode Analysis." International Journal of Creative and Open Research in Engineering and Management 02, no. 03 (2026). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.55041/ijcope.v2i3.251.

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References


  1. Kumar, S. Jain, and R. Gupta, “AI-Driven Vulnerability Detection in IoT Firmware Using Opcode Sequence Embeddings,” IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 45–58, Jan. 2025.

  2. Chen and M. Zhao, “Machine Learning Techniques for Binary Firmware Security Analysis,” IEEE Access, vol. 13, pp. 12134–12147, 2025.

  3. Singh and T. Patel, “Exploring Cross-Architecture Opcode Patterns for Embedded Firmware Vulnerability Detection,” 2025 IEEE International Conference on Cybersecurity and Resilience (CCR), pp. 98–106, Mar. 2025.

  4. J. Park and H. Lee, “A Random Forest Based Framework for Detection of Security Vulnerabilities in Embedded Firmware,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 5578–5589, May 2025

Ethical Compliance & Review Process

  • All submissions are screened under plagiarism detection.
  • Review follows editorial policy.
  • Authors retain copyright.
  • Peer Review Type: Double-Blind Peer Review
  • Published on: Mar 31 2026
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