An overview to Software Architecture in Intrusion Detection System

This paper presents an overview of the technologies and the methodologies used in Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (NIDPS). Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) technologies are differentiated by types of events that IDPSs can recognize, by types of devices that IDPSs monitor and by activity. NIDPSs monitor and analyze the streams of network packets in order to detect security incidents. The main methodology used by NIDPSs is protocol analysis. Protocol analysis requires good knowledge of the theory of the main protocols, their definition, how each protocol works.Keywords: Intrusion Detection and Prevention System, Protocol Analysis, Sensor, Signature, State(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)1 IntroductionIncreasing size and complexity of the Internet and Intranet networks have led to increasing number of vulnerabilities that could be exploited. Thus, the internal and external attacks on the information systems are increasing at an alarming rate. Also, these are becoming more severe and sophisticated. The attackers find ingenious ways to bypass the security controls and to compromise the security and the well functioning of the information systems. They are motivated by financial, political, and military objectives. In this context, defending wide area networks from malicious traffic, unauthorized access to systems involves many problems.In security information systems Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (NIDPS) are important tools to detect possible incidents and also, to attempt to stop them in real time. Due to changing attacks, intrusion detection methodologies and technologies continuously evolve, adding new detection capabilities, to avoid detection. They must adapt to new forms of malware, to the public networks, increased traffic.2 Concepts of Intrusion DetectionAn intrusion is a successful action to gain access to an information system, to compromise it or to make it unavailable. This is possible due to the presence of vulnerability in the target system that can be exploited by a motivated intruder.Intrusion Detection and Prevention is the process of monitoring the information systems by sensors or agents and analyzing the collected information to detect and to attempt to stop the attacks in real time, identifying vulnerabilities, the violation of security policies or standard security practices.An Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) is a tool that monitors information systems, collects, analyzes information, and initiates responses when an intrusion is detected.Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) mainly work as defensive mechanisms. They only alert the system administrators that an incident has occurred. Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPSs) can take some actions to attempt to stop the attack, such as breaking the connection or modifying the firewall rules to deny access to the intruder. The response of the classic IDS can be slow if the system administrator is busy while the response of the IPS is automatic. An architecture that uses together IPS and IDS technologies is the best solution for defense in depth.Conceptually, a generic IDPS consists of modular components. It mainly has the following components: monitoring system, storage, analyzer, and responder.* Monitoring system - monitors and logs the events in a computer system or network;* Storage - stores information, called audit record, about suspicious activities or intrusions; also, the security policies used in analysis are stored;* Analyzer - uses different analysis methodologies to detect the incidents;* Responder - the response mechanism of incidents.The IDPSs could be classified as:* By detection methodology [12], [18]:- misuse-based detection- anomaly-based detection- stateful protocol analysis* By activity [12]:- network-based- wireless-based- network behavior analysis- host-based* By behavior on detection:- passive- active* By collection and analysis frequency:- continuous- periodicThe detection methodologies describe the characteristics of the analyzer. …

This paper describes the ESIDE-Depian intrusion detection and prevention system, which uses Bayesian structural and parametric learning and also evidence propagation and adaptation, in order to improve the accuracy and manageability of network intrusion detection systems (NIDS). Current NIDS do not consider the two main detection paradigms, i.e. misuse detection and anomaly detection, in an unified style, so the analysis is not inherently complete. Besides, historical data are not generally used, neither for analysis nor for sequential adaptation of the knowledge representation models used for detection; hence this wealthy information about the essence and the potential trends of the target system is not commonly considered. Thus, by the generalized use of Bayesian belief networks, ESIDE-Depian achieves the main goal of detecting and preventing both well-known and also zero-day attacks with excellent results, by means of unified real-time analysis of network traffic.

Attacks on networks are currently the most pressing issue confronting modern society. Network risks affect all networks, from small to large. An intrusion detection system must be present for detecting and mitigating hostile attacks inside networks. Machine Learning and Deep Learning are currently used in several sectors, particularly the security of information, to design efficient intrusion detection systems. These systems can quickly and accurately identify threats. However, because malicious threats emerge and evolve regularly, networks need an advanced security solution. Hence, building an intrusion detection system that is both effective and intelligent is one of the most cognizant research issues. There are several public datasets available for research on intrusion detection. Because of the complexity of attacks and the continually evolving detection of an attack method, publicly available intrusion databases must be updated frequently. A convolutional recurrent neural network is employed in this study to construct a deep-learning-based hybrid intrusion detection system that detects attacks over a network. To boost the efficiency of the intrusion detection system and predictability, the convolutional neural network performs the convolution to collect local features, while a deep-layered recurrent neural network extracts the features in the proposed Hybrid Deep-Learning-Based Network Intrusion Detection System (HDLNIDS). Experiments are conducted using publicly accessible benchmark CICIDS-2018 data, to determine the effectiveness of the proposed system. The findings of the research demonstrate that the proposed HDLNIDS outperforms current intrusion detection approaches with an average accuracy of 98.90% in detecting malicious attacks.

In this paper the software system for network traffic analysis and intrusion detection has been developed. The system for monitoring and analyzing of traffic to detect anomalies and identify attacks based on Hurst parameter has been proposed. This system allows determining the Hurst flow parameter at different intervals of observation. This system can be installed on the network provider to more effectively use the bandwidth by balancing the load between different protocols and subscribers.

The inherent complexity and heterogeneity of the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem present significant challenges for developing effective intrusion detection systems. While graph deep-learning-based methods have shown promise in cybersecurity applications, existing approaches primarily construct graphs based on physical network connections, which may not effectively capture node representations. This paper proposes a Top-K Similarity Graph Framework (TKSGF) for IoT network intrusion detection. Instead of relying on physical links, the TKSGF constructs graphs based on Top-K attribute similarity, ensuring a more meaningful representation of node relationships. We employ GraphSAGE as the Graph Neural Network (GNN) model to effectively capture node representations while maintaining scalability. Furthermore, we conducted extensive experiments to analyze the impact of graph directionality (directed vs. undirected), different K values, and various GNN architectures and configurations on detection performance. Evaluations on binary and multi-class classification tasks using the NF-ToN IoT and NF-BoT IoT datasets from the Machine-Learning-Based Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) benchmark demonstrated that our proposed framework consistently outperformed traditional machine learning methods and existing graph-based approaches, achieving superior classification accuracy and robustness.

With the popularization and development of network knowledge, network intruders are increasing, and the attack mode has been updated. Intrusion detection technology is a kind of active defense technology, which can extract the key information from the network system, and quickly judge and protect the internal or external network intrusion. Intrusion detection is a kind of active security technology, which provides real-time protection for internal attacks, external attacks and misuse, and it plays an important role in ensuring network security. However, with the diversification of intrusion technology, the traditional intrusion detection system cannot meet the requirements of the current network security. Therefore, the implementation of intrusion detection needs diversifying. In this context, we apply neural network technology to the network intrusion detection system to solve the problem. In this paper, on the basis of intrusion detection method, we analyze the development history and the present situation of intrusion detection technology, and summarize the intrusion detection system overview and architecture. The neural network intrusion detection is divided into data acquisition, data analysis, pretreatment, intrusion behavior detection and testing.

Network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) are essential for protecting computer networks against cyberattacks. The selection of a nominal set of essential features that may adequately discriminate malicious traffic from normal traffic is indispensable while developing a NIDS. As such, a more reliable and accurate detection result may be realized when intrusion detection is carried out on a dataset based on an inclusive feature representation. This work presents the pre-processing and feature selection workflow as well as its results in the case of the CIC-IDS-2017 dataset, with a focus on two cyber-attacks, namely Denial-of-Service (DoS) and PortScan. The study applied an ensemble feature selection method based on information gain and Random Forest to filter out important features. Recursive Feature Elimination method was then applied to the reduced features to optimize the selected feature subset. The selected feature subset was experimented with using two classification algorithms, namely support vector machine and multi-layer perceptron. In the evaluation process, four widely used performance metrics were considered. The study results demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed ensemble approach to optimize the selected feature subset for detecting PortScan and DoS attacks in network traffic. Experimental results revealed that the support vector machine had a slight advantage in accuracy and could train more quickly. According to the study's evaluation, the NIDS may be able to shorten processing times without sacrificing the ability to detect PortScan and DoS attacks accurately by choosing a narrow subset of informative features. This suggests the approach might be applicable to real-world NIDS scenarios involving these attacks. The study also provides encouraging perspectives on how ensemble feature selection utilizing MLP and SVM can enhance the effectiveness of NIDS. Building on these findings, more research can create NIDS solutions that are even more reliable and efficient for the dynamic field of cybersecurity.

As the reliance on digital networks grows, the need for robust security measures becomes paramount. It offers a thorough analysis of creating and assessing a Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) incorporating various machine learning algorithms. The selected algorithms consist of K Nearest Neighbour, Naïve Bayes, Decision Tree, Support Vector Machine, and Logistic Regression. Moreover, widely recognised ensemble learning models like CatBoost, AdaBoost, Gradient Boost, Random Forest, and Extreme Gradient Boost. The core objective is to improve the efficiency of intrusion detection by evaluating various machine-learning models. Utilizes feature selection techniques based on chi-square to enhance the relevance and effectiveness of the selected features. The evaluation metrics, particularly Matthews’ Correlation Coefficient (MCC) and ROC Curves, are used in assessing the models’ efficacy. They offer valuable insights into the models’ capability to differentiate between normal and malicious network activities. This study aims to advance cybersecurity by comparing classical machine learning and ensemble models for network intrusion detection. Significantly, our results underscore XGBoost’s effectiveness with 0.996 accuracy and 0.993 MCC, in enhancing digital network security.

Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) which should perform time-consuming evaluation of every packet received from network have faced throughput challenge as a result of the increase in the speed of network communications and the high volume of Internet threats. In an NIDS, the most important and time-consuming processes are pattern matching and deep inspection of the header and the body of packets. Several analyses show that this process can take up to 75% of the time of processing packets. In this paper, relying on the processing power of general purpose graphics cards - which seem to be a better option compared to other hardware technologies like FPGAs with regard to speed, scalability, flexibility, ease of programming and price - and with the idea of having the signature-based detection engine of NIDS systems run on GPU rather than CPU, it is tried to present an efficient method to increase the speed of intrusion detection systems such as Snort. The proposed method provides a means to perform payload matching and non-payload matching of packets in a parallel platform on GPU, which can speed up the signature-based detection engine of Snort 3.6.

Blockchain and federated learning-based intrusion detection approaches for edge-enabled industrial IoT networks: a survey

In recent times, secure communication protocols over web such as HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) are being widely used instead of plain web communication protocols like HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). HTTPS provides end-to-end encryption between the user and service. Nowadays, organizations use network firewalls and/or intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) to analyze the network traffic to detect and protect against attacks and vulnerabilities. Depending on the size of organization, these devices may differ in their capabilities. Simple network intrusion detection system (NIDS) and firewalls generally have no feature to inspect HTTPS or encrypted traffic, so they rely on unencrypted traffic to manage the encrypted payload of the network. Recent and powerful next-generation firewalls have Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) inspection feature which are expensive and may not be suitable for every organizations. A virtual private network (VPN) is a service which hides real traffic by creating SSL-protected channel between the user and server. Every Internet activity is then performed under the established SSL tunnel. The user inside the network with malicious intent or to hide his activity from the network security administration of the organization may use VPN services. Any VPN service may be used by users to bypass the filters or signatures applied on network security devices. These services may be the source of new virus or worm injected inside the network or a gateway to facilitate information leakage. In this paper, we have proposed a novel approach to detect VPN activity inside the network. The proposed system analyzes the communication between user and the server to analyze and extract features from network, transport, and application layer which are not encrypted and classify the incoming traffic as malicious, i.e., VPN traffic or standard traffic. Network traffic is analyzed and classified using DNS (Domain Name System) packets and HTTPS- (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure-) based traffic. Once traffic is classified, the connection based on the server’s IP, TCP port connected, domain name, and server name inside the HTTPS connection is analyzed. This helps in verifying legitimate connection and flags the VPN-based traffic. We worked on top five freely available VPN services and analyzed their traffic patterns; the results show successful detection of the VPN activity performed by the user. We analyzed the activity of five users, using some sort of VPN service in their Internet activity, inside the network. Out of total 729 connections made by different users, 329 connections were classified as legitimate activity, marking 400 remaining connections as VPN-based connections. The proposed system is lightweight enough to keep minimal overhead, both in network and resource utilization and requires no specialized hardware.

Network attacks have become necessary in today’s time due to increased network traffic. To determine whether network traffic is normal or anomalous a supervised machine learning system is developed. A network intrusion detection system (IDS) is a must-have piece of a security system. This proposed study aims to discover new patterns automatically from substantial quantities of network data, reducing time manually compiling intrusion and normal behavior patterns. The best model in terms of detection success rate was discovered using a supervised learning algorithm and feature selection method. AdaBoost outperforms Neural Network, kNN, and Naive Bayes in supervised machine learning with feature selection in this study, with a detection accuracy of 100.00%, 99.30%, 91.60%, and 99.70%, respectively. The Network Intrusion Detection dataset is used to classify network intrusions to evaluate the study and it has also been used in past studies. On the other hand, the proposed model proved to be more effective than other studies in terms of intrusion detection. The proposed approach can be used in various fields, including finance, health, and transportation. Furthermore, additional parameter tuning could be added, and different feature selection techniques could be used to improve the performance of the classifiers.

Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) are critical in ensuring the security of connected computer systems by actively detecting and preventing unauthorized activities and malicious attacks. Machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) based NIDS models leverage algorithms that learn from historical network traffic data to identify patterns and anomalies to capture complex relationships. The primary objective of this research is to generate tags and descriptions for the packets that are difficult to classify by the NIDS. Most NIDS datasets that are publicly available have focused on flow data, offering aggregated information about network connections, and have played a crucial role in enabling researchers and network security professionals to design and develop flow-based NIDS solutions. While flow records provide valuable information for detecting network-level anomalies and attacks, they do not consider packet-level information and payload contents. In this research, we propose a packet-level approach for NIDS that leverages the flow information with the packet header fields and payload. To facilitate this research, we have curated a comprehensive Packet-level dataset constructed by extracting the Packet Capture (PCAP) files from two widely used flow-level datasets, namely CIC-IDS2017 and UNSW-NB15. Recent advancements in Natural Language Processing (NLP) have demonstrated the effectiveness of Transformer-based models in handling sequence data with tasks such as token classification and text generation. We have adapted this technology to NIDS to extract key features and characteristics of the header and payload in the context of various attacks. Unlike traditional classification methods that assign predefined labels to network packets, this method focuses on generating tags based on the packet signature that explains the packet content and potential risks. The tags and descriptions offer network security professionals a tool to comprehend suspicious packets with an unfamiliar or potentially malicious signature, assess their nature, and help make informed decisions promptly.

Intrusion detection is a familiar phrase in the information and network security domain. An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is a device or software that will keep track of the networks, for unlawful movements, and policy breaches that arise within the network. There are different forms of IDS, Host Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) helps in identifying unauthorized activities on the host, Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) helps in identifying attacks in the network, whereas Distributed Intrusion Detection System (DIDS) consists of multiple IDS over a large area of network where individual IDS communicates with each other or with the central the authorized central server. The proposed work has a three-layered architecture for DIDS for securing data sharing among different IDS. The bottom layer uses multiple IDS, the fog layer is supported with Blockchain functionality, and the cloud service at the upper layer stores required data permanently for future analysis. The fog computing-based architecture for DIDS tries to implement the application in a scalable and trustless environment using distributed ledger technology. The evaluation of the proposed work is carried out for fog, cloud, and integrated fog-cloud with the Blockchain functionality and without Blockchain functionality in measuring performance metrics related to throughput, service latency, response time, block creation time, and block execution time.

Nature-inspired intrusion detection system for protecting software-defined networks controller