Explainable Machine Learning Framework for Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attack Detection using Comparative Evaluation and SHAP Analysis

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks consist of a large number of compromised computer systems that launch joint attacks at a targeted victim, such as a server, website, or other network equipment, simultaneously. DDoS has become a widespread and severe threat to the integrity of computer networks. DDoS can lead to system paralysis, making it difficult to troubleshoot. As a key building block in the development of an integrated defense system, it is essential to detect DDoS attacks as early as possible. With the popularization of artificial intelligence, more and more researchers apply machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) to the detection of DDoS attacks and have achieved satisfactory accomplishments. The complexity and sophistication of DDoS attacks have kept increasing and evolving since the first DDoS attack was reported in 1996. Regarding the headways in this problem, a new type of DDoS attack, named adversarial DDoS attack, is investigated in this study. The generating adversarial DDoS traffic is carried out using a symmetric Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) architecture called Cycle-GAN to demonstrate the severe impact of adversarial DDoS attacks. Experiment results reveal that the synthesized traffic can easily penetrate ML-based detection systems, including Random Forest, KNN (k-Nearest Neighbor), SVM (Support Vector Machine), and Naïve Bayes. These alarming results intimate the urgent need for countermeasures against adversary DDoS attacks.

Prevention and detection of DDOS attack in virtual cloud computing environment using Naive Bayes algorithm of machine learning

Deep learning techniques for DDoS attack detection: Concepts, analyses, challenges, and future directions

a serious nuisance for network security could be a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. The advent of the technological era has also brought along the threat of DDoS attacks for a variety of services and applications that use the Internet. Firms can incur huge financial losses even if there is a disruption in services for a fraction of a period. Analogous to a DDoS attack is the Flash Crowd (FC), in which a particular service is assessed by many legitimate users concurrently, which results in the denial of service. Overloading of network resources is a common issue associated with both these events, which impact CPU, available bandwidth, and memory for legitimate users, thereby leading to limited accessibility. Many researchers have put effort to differentiate between these two kinds of traffic, but none could come up with an effective solution. In this study, we propose an adaptive agent-based model, known as an adaptive application layer flooding protection (AALFP) model, for DDoS and FC flooding attacks. The AALFP model is aimed to protect the network application layer (NAL) against such attacks. Importantly, the model distinguishes and separates normal from abnormal traffic, and then blocks illegitimate traffic. Note that, to operate two traffic filters, the agent relies on the following three parameters of normal traffic intensity, traffic attack behaviour, and IP address history log. An example scenario is provided to simulate the model's application.

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack poses a serious threat to network security and can disrupt online services by overwhelming the target server with excessive traffic. Effective detection of DDoS attacks requires a system capable of identifying anomalies in network traffic. In this context, Machine Learning (ML) offers an effective approach for classification and anomaly detection. However, different ML algorithms have varying strengths and weaknesses when processing large and complex network data. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the performance of three ML algorithms: Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest Classifier (RFC), and K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) in detecting DDoS anomalies. The dataset used consists of 225,745 data points with 85 attributes that describe various characteristics of network traffic, such as destination port, flow duration, packet count, and packet size. This dataset is classified into two classes, BENIGN and DDoS, representing normal traffic and DDoS attacks, respectively. Evaluation is performed using several performance metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, MCC (Matthews Correlation Coefficient), F-Measure, ROC Area, PRC Area, True Positive Rate (TPR), and False Positive Rate (FPR). The results show that the Random Forest Classifier (RFC) delivers the best performance with an accuracy of 99.99%, precision of 99.98%, recall of 100%, and a very low FPR of 0.02%. This is followed by the Support Vector Machine (SVM) with an accuracy of 99.91%, and the K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) with an accuracy of 99.98%. All three algorithms demonstrate strong performance in detecting DDoS anomalies, with RFC slightly outperforming others in terms of consistency and higher classification capability. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for selecting the best algorithm to detect DDoS attacks in networks.

Introduction: Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) has become a common attack type in cyber security. Apart from the conventional DDoS attacks, software-defined networks also face some other typical DDoS attacks, such as flow-table attack or controller attack. One of the most recent solutions to detect a DDoS attack is using machine learning algorithms to classify the traffic. Purpose: Analysis of applying machine learning algorithms in order to prevent DDoS attacks in software-defined network. Results: A comparison of six algorithms (random forest, decision tree, naive Bayes, support vector machine, multilayer perceptron, k-nearest neighbors) with accuracy and process time as the criteria has shown that a decision tree and naïve Bayes are the most suitable algorithms for DDoS attack detection. As compared to other algorithms, they have higher accuracy, faster processing time and lower resource consumption. The main features that identify malicious traffic compared to normal one are the number of bytes in a flow, time flow, Ethernet source address, and Ethernet destination address. A flow-table attack can be detected easier than a bandwidth attack, as all the six algorithms can predict this type with a high accuracy. Practical relevance: Important features which play a supporting role in correct data classification facilitate the development of a DDoS protection system with a smaller dataset, focusing only on the necessary data. The algorithms more suitable for machine learning can help us to detect DDoS attacks in software-defined networks more accurately.

Abstract: DDoS attacks also known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks have emerged as one of the most serious and fastest-growing threats on the Internet. Denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are an example of cyber-attacks that target a specific system or network in an attempt to render it inaccessible or unusable for a period of time. As a result improving the detection of diverse types of DDoS cyber threats with better algorithms and higher accuracy while keeping the computational cost under control has become the most significant component of detecting DDoS cyber threats. DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack originates from many sources scattered over multiple network locations. DoS attacks are primarily motivated by the desire to significantly degrade the performance or completely consume a certain resource and a process to exploit a machine defect and cause failure of a processing or exhausting the system resources by exploiting a system flaw. Yet another method of assaulting the target system is to flood the network and monopolies it so preventing anyone else from utilizing it. DDoS attack has a high impact on crashing the network resources making the target servers unable to support the valid users.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of sensors that helps collect data 24/7 without human intervention. However, the network may suffer from problems such as the low battery, heterogeneity, and connectivity issues due to the lack of standards. Even though these problems can cause several performance hiccups, security issues need immediate attention because hackers access vital personal and financial information and then misuse it. These security issues can allow hackers to hijack IoT devices and then use them to establish a Botnet to launch a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Blockchain technology can provide security to IoT devices by providing secure authentication using public keys. Similarly, Smart Contracts (SCs) can improve the performance of the IoT–blockchain network through automation. However, surveyed work shows that the blockchain and SCs do not provide foolproof security; sometimes, attackers defeat these security mechanisms and initiate DDoS attacks. Thus, developers and security software engineers must be aware of different techniques to detect DDoS attacks. In this survey paper, we highlight different techniques to detect DDoS attacks. The novelty of our work is to classify the DDoS detection techniques according to blockchain technology. As a result, researchers can enhance their systems by using blockchain-based support for detecting threats. In addition, we provide general information about the studied systems and their workings. However, we cannot neglect the recent surveys. To that end, we compare the state-of-the-art DDoS surveys based on their data collection techniques and the discussed DDoS attacks on the IoT subsystems. The study of different IoT subsystems tells us that DDoS attacks also impact other computing systems, such as SCs, networking devices, and power grids. Hence, our work briefly describes DDoS attacks and their impacts on the above subsystems and IoT. For instance, due to DDoS attacks, the targeted computing systems suffer delays which cause tremendous financial and utility losses to the subscribers. Hence, we discuss the impacts of DDoS attacks in the context of associated systems. Finally, we discuss Machine-Learning algorithms, performance metrics, and the underlying technology of IoT systems so that the readers can grasp the detection techniques and the attack vectors. Moreover, associated systems such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) are a source of good security enhancement for IoT Networks. Thus, we include a detailed discussion of future development encompassing all major IoT subsystems.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have emerged as one of the most pervasive and damaging threats to network security, disrupting services and incurring substantial financial costs. Machine learning (ML) has been widely explored as a potential solution to enhance DDoS detection and mitigation. This systematic review evaluates the effectiveness of ML techniques in detecting DDoS attacks, synthesizing findings from studies published between 2004 and 2024. The review analyzes models such as Random Forest, Support Vector Machines (SVM), and K-Nearest Neighbors (K-NN) based on key performance metrics like accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. A comprehensive search of multiple databases, including Web of Science, IEEE, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar, resulted in 19 studies that met inclusion criteria. The findings show that ensemble methods, particularly Random Forest, consistently outperformed other models in terms of detection rates, mainly due to their ability to handle large feature sets and reduce overfitting. Support Vector Machines also performed well in specific scenarios. However, their effectiveness was sometimes limited by computational complexity and the dataset size. K-Nearest Neighbors showed mixed results, depending on the nature of the attack patterns. This review emphasizes the potential of ensemble learning approaches for DDoS detection, demonstrating their robustness in dynamic environments. The review identifies key gaps in the existing research, including the need for better feature selection and exploring deep learning techniques to enhance DDoS detection accuracy and adaptability further. This study contributes valuable insights into the strengths and limitations of ML-based DDoS detection models, offering a foundation for future advancements in the field. It underscores the importance of continued research into hybrid and deep learning models to address the evolving and increasingly sophisticated nature of DDoS attacks in real-world applications.

By quick computer and communication technology improvement, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack harm is getting more important. DDoS attacks research is the important study domain; a number of methods exist which have been presented like the algorithm of evolutionary as well as artificial intelligence in literature to diagnose attacks of DDoS. Unfortunately, new popular models of DDoS diagnosis are deteriorating for validating DDoS attacks objective and prior identification. Because of DDoS attack modes diversity as well as various attack traffic amount, still there is not the technique of diagnosis with promising accuracy of diagnosis currently. By choosing the best subset of features, a feature selection (FS) approach helps to shorten computing times and increase computational complexity. For mitigating attacks of denial of service, this paper applies honey badger algorithm (HBA) with algorithm of machine learning known as HBIDS. Present strategy is given the making intrusion detection system (IDS) for meeting controlled area needs and could recognize between attack and normal traffics. Moreover, HBIDS chooses the most related from basic dataset of IDS which could aid recognizing normal low-speed DDoS attacks, then chosen features are conveyed to classifiers like decision tree, multilayer perceptron, na\"ive Bayes, and support vector machine for identifying attack kind. Generally accessible dataset as CIC-IDS 2017 and KDD Cup 99 are applied for our experimental research. From simulation outcomes, this is obvious that HBIDS with decision tree needs high diagnosis with the low false–positive rate (0.001) and accuracy (99.9).

Software-Defined Networks (SDN) provides more control and network operation over a network infrastructure as an emerging and revolutionary paradigm in networking. Operating the many network applications and preserving the network services and functions, the SDN controller is regarded as the operating system of the SDN-based network architecture. The SDN has several security problems because of its intricate design, even with all its amazing features. Denial-of-service (DoS) attacks continuously impact users and Internet service providers (ISPs). Because of its centralized design, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on SDN are frequent and may have a widespread effect on the network, particularly at the control layer. We propose to implement both MLP (Multilayer Perceptron) and CNN (Convolutional Neural Networks) based on conventional methods to detect the Denial of Services (DDoS) attack. These models have got a complex optimizer installed on them to decrease the false positive or DDoS case detection efficiency. We use the SHAP feature selection technique to improve the detection procedure. By assisting in the identification of which features are most essential to spot the incidents, the approach aids in the process of enhancing precision and flammability. Fine-tuning the hyperparameters with the help of Bayesian optimization to obtain the best model performance is another important thing that we do in our model. Two datasets, InSDN and CICDDoS-2019, are utilized to assess the effectiveness of the proposed method, 99.95% for the true positive (TP) of the CICDDoS-2019 dataset and 99.98% for the InSDN dataset, the results show that the model is highly accurate.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) constitutes major threat to both traditional and SDN networks. An attacker can launch a DDoS attack to exhaust either the controller or other network resources, such as switches, or both. There are different DDoS attacks such as UDP flood, SYN flood, Ping of death, ICMP flood and HTTP flood. Among these, SYN and HTTP flood are the most common attacks these days. In this thesis, we focus on developing a security scheme to alleviate the DDoS attacks with spoofed and non-spoofed IP addresses in the SDN environment. First we use a simple detection mechanism that utilizes a time series window-based traffic statistic measurement to detect possible SYN flood and/or HTTP flood DDoS attacks. To reduce false positives, further investigation of traffic is done based on valid source IP address scheme and single flow packet scheme to separate legitimate traffic from attack traffic. Once the attack is detected, the security scheme deploys a number of mitigation methods to alleviate the attack. For the SYN flood attack, the mitigation method of Source IP address filtering is used to permit traffic only with valid source IP addresses to enter the network. For HTTP flood attack mitigation, a mitigation method is used to identify the attack sources and discard the traffic from those sources. We test our proposed scheme with other DDoS attacks such as ICMP flood attack and UDP flood attacks. We also compare our scheme with other security schemes found in the literature. The result shows that our proposed scheme can effectively protect controller and other network resources from some common DDoS attacks, and that our scheme allows more legitimate traffic connections with less false positives in comparison with other schemes.

One of the most notorious security issues in the IoT is the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Using a large number of agents, DDoS attack floods the host server with a huge number of requests causing interrupting and blocking the legitimate user requests. This paper proposes a detection and prevention algorithm for DDoS attacks. It is divided into two parts, one for detecting the DDoS attack in the IoT end devices and the other for mitigating the impact of the attack placed on the border router. Also, it has the ability to differentiate the High-rate from the Lowrate DDoS attack accurately and defend against these two types of attacks. It is implemented and tested against different scenarios to dissect their efficiency in detecting and mitigating the DDoS attack.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) persists in Online Applications as One of those significant threats. Attackers can execute DDoS by the more natural steps. Then with the high productivity to slow the consumer access services down. To detect an attack on DDoS and using machine learning algorithms. The Overseen to detect and mitigate the attack, machine learning algorithms such as Naive Bayes, decision tree, k-nearest neighbours (k-NN) and random forest are used. There are three steps: gathering information, preprocessing and feature Extraction in "Normal or DDoS" classification algorithm for detection Attack use Dataset NSL-KDD. Similar algorithms have different functions Conduct that is dependent on the features selected. DDOS-attack performance Detection is compared, and it indicates the best algorithm. Attempts at Distributed Denial of Service ( DDoS) Were the most powerful attacks of the last period. A Virtual Network. The intrusion detection system (NIDS) should be designed seamlessly to Fight the latest strategies and trends of those attackers NIDS on DDoS. In this paper, we propose an NIDS capable of detecting Current DDoS attacks, as well as new forms. The main characteristic of Our NIDS is the combination of various classifiers using an ensemble Models, with the concept of each classifier being able to target different Aspects/types of intrusions, and more effective in doing so Mechanism for protecting against new intrusions. Additionally, we perform a detailed study of and based on, DDoS attacks check the reduced set of functions [27, 28] to be essential to Enhance accuracy. We are playing with and analyzing NSL-KDD Dataset with a feature set reduced, and our proposed NIDS will Detect 99.1 per cent of active DDoS attacks. Let's compare our Tests with other methods which already exist. Our approach to NIDS has Able to learn to keep up with existing and evolving DDoS Attack trends.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are distributed at a faster rate, and they are considered to be fatal threats over the Internet. Moreover, several deep learning approaches are insufficient to attain the maximum efficiency and appropriate detection due to the complexity and diversity of DDoS attack traffic under fast fast-speed network environment since they are providing with individual performance. Hence, an ensemble learning model is developed for DDoS detection and mitigation with the hybrid optimization algorithm to ensure good detective performance against DDoS attacks. The pre-processed data is fed to the feature extraction process where it is done through the Deep Belief Network (DBN) and Autoencoder techniques for acquiring the deep features. The optimized fusion of deep features takes place using hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm of Adaptive Sound Speed-based Jaya Sea Lion Optimization (ASS-JSLnO). The attack detection is performed by the Improved Ensemble Learning (IEL) approach. Then, the mitigation strategy is applied by the optimal routing and multi-objective function. Finally, the experiments are made to establish the high detection efficacy of the implemented attack detection and mitigation framework.