Abstract
This paper proposes an Android-oriented zero-day malware detection method named “Android Zero-Day Guard.” By integrating deep neural networks with zero-shot learning, this approach is capable of identifying emerging threats without prior exposure to malicious samples. The method converts APK files into images and extracts deep features, enabling effective capture of behavioral malware patterns. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a precision of 94.93%, a recall of 93.75%, and an F1-score of 94.28% across multiple malware families. Without relying on dynamic analysis, it exhibits strong detection capability and generalization performance, making it well-suited for the early identification of emerging threats. While the model performs strongly on benchmark datasets, continuous validation on the latest families is essential for deployment in a rapidly evolving threat landscape.