Machine-Learning-Based DDoS Attack Detection Using Mutual Information and Random Forest Feature Importance Method

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.

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 occurs when an attacker tries to disrupt a network, service or website by flooding huge numbers of packets on the internet traffic. Detecting DDoS attacks serves the goal of spotting and addressing them promptly to reduce their effects on the network, system or service being targeted. Detecting Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks is crucial, for people, companies and network managers. The detection of DDoS attacks has ranging uses in industries such as network security safeguarding websites, managing cloud services ensuring the security of online systems and services. Detecting DDoS attacks is essential for safeguarding infrastructure upholding service availability and guaranteeing the security of online systems and services. To achieve this objective, we proposed a framework to detect DDoS attacks including six steps. In step one, we start by gathering information, which includes network activity and system records, for operations as well as instances of DDoS attacks. Step two, we identify characteristics of the data collected such as patterns in network traffic, packet details, IP addresses, types of protocols used and more. Step three, we utilize algorithms for feature selection such as Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA), Gray Wolf Algorithm (GWA), Particle Swarm Algorithm (PSO) to pinpoint the features that can distinguish between normal activities and DDoS attack patterns. After that in step four, we divide the processed dataset into sections for training and testing purposes to develop and assess the machine learning models such as SVM (support vector machine), and KNN (K-nearest neighbor). Step five we develop a classification model using machine learning techniques like decision trees, forests, support vector machines (SVM) logistic regression models or neural networks. Finally, we assess the effectiveness of models through metrics such as accuracy rates, precision levels, recall rates, and F1 scores. The results show that the proposed models achieve high results (99.9%). In summary detecting DDoS attacks is crucial for protecting networks, systems and online services against disruptions.

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

This research focuses on enhancing the detection mechanisms for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks using advanced machine learning techniques. We explore two innovative approaches: a metaclassifier stacking model and a transfer learning model, utilizing the CICDDoS2019 and CICIDS2017 datasets for training and evaluation. The first approach integrates K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Random Forest (RF) algorithms through a logistic regression metaclassifier. This ensemble method harnesses the strengths of each algorithm, leading to improved metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. The second approach employs transfer learning, where a pre-trained Artificial Neural Network (ANN) on the CICIDS2017 dataset is fine-tuned with the CICDDoS2019 dataset. This technique demonstrates the benefits of knowledge transfer, achieving high detection performance with reduced training time. Our findings reveal that both methods significantly enhance DDoS detection. The metaclassifier approach delivers superior performance metrics but requires more computational resources. In contrast, the transfer learning approach provides an efficient balance between performance and computational demand, ideal for rapid deployment scenarios. In summary, this study highlights the efficacy of combining multiple algorithms and leveraging pre-trained models to improve DDoS detection accuracy and efficiency. These approaches offer promising directions for developing robust and effective DDoS detection systems.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is a cyberattack in which the attacker makes a system or network resources unavailable to the intended audience temporarily or permanently. NetBIOS DDoS is a reflection based DDoS attack makes the victim system unavailable to communication other NetBIOS hosts. Service unavailable makes huge impact in terms of financially and reputational. So DDoS attack detection at early stage is more important. This study proposed machine learning algorithms for NetBIOS DDoS attack detection. Experiments are performed on NetBIOS_DrDoS dataset, which is collected from CIC-DDoS2019 evaluation dataset. In order to reduce computational overheads features are selected by Correlation methods. This study uses Pearson, spearman and Kendall correlation methods to select uncorrelated features. This study evaluated Logistic regression, Decision tree, Random forest, Ada Boost, Gradient Boost, K-Nearest Neighbour, Naive-Bayes and Multilayer perceptron classification algorithms with Pearson, Spearman and Kendall uncorrelated feature subsets in order to classify attack and benign class labels. Multilayer perceptron with Pearson uncorrelated feature subset gives the best performance for NetBIOS DDoS attack detection.

Fiber optic networks (FONs) are considered the backbone of telecom companies worldwide. However, the network elements of FONs are scattered over a wide area and managed through a centralized controller based on intelligent devices and the internet of things (IoT), with actuators used to perform specific tasks at remote locations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many telecom companies advised their employees to manage the network using the public internet (e.g., working from home while connected to an IoT network). Theses IoT devices mostly have weak security algorithms that are easily taken-over by hackers, and therefore can generate Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in FONs. A DDoS attack is one of the most severe cyberattack types, and can negatively affect the stability and quality of managing networks. Nowadays, software-defined networks (SDN) constitute a new approach that simplifies how the network can be managed through a centralized controller. Moreover, machine learning algorithms allow the detection of incoming malicious traffic with high accuracy. Therefore, combining SDN and ML approaches can lead to detecting and stopping DDoS attacks quickly and efficiently, especially compared to traditional methods. In this paper, we evaluated six ML models: Logistic Regression, K-Nearest Neighbor, Support Vector Machine, Naive Bayes, Decision Tree, and Random Forest. The accuracy reached 100% while detecting DDoS attacks in FON with two approaches: (1) using SVM with three features (SOS, SSIP, and RPF) and (2) using Random Forest with five features (SOS, SSIP, RPF, SDFP, and SDFB). The training time for the first approach was 14.3 s, whereas the second approach only requires 0.18 s; hence, the second approach was utilized for deployment.

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks pose a significant security risk, particularly with the increasing reliance on cloud computing and information technology (IT). These attacks not only allow unauthorized users to access services but also deny legitimate users the ability to utilize them. Traditional antivirus solutions and firewalls prove insufficient in detecting DDoS attacks within large networks. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are essential for detecting unauthorized or malicious activities and ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of services. However, traditional IDS often rely on predefined signatures and patterns, making them susceptible to evasion tactics. In response, this research introduces a deep learning (DL)-based IDS that integrates convolutional neural networks (CNN) with principal component analysis (PCA) and explores the application of vision transformers (ViT). The proposed hybrid model was tested on the CICDDoS2019 dataset, achieving a notable improvement in detection accuracy. Specifically, the CNN-based model initially identified DDoS attacks with an accuracy of 99.72%. Upon integrating ViT, the model’s accuracy further improved to 99.99%. This innovative approach signifies a considerable advancement in the detection capabilities for DDoS attacks and underscores the potential for integrating more sophisticated DL models into cybersecurity defenses.

Internet of Things (IoT) security is becoming important with the growing popularity of IoT devices and their wide applications. Recent network security reports revealed a sharp increase in the type, frequency, sophistication, and impact of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on IoT systems, making DDoS one of the most challenging threats. DDoS is used to commit actual, effective, and profitable cybercrimes. The current machine learning-based IoT DDoS attack detection systems use batch learning techniques, and hence are unable to maintain their performance over time in a dynamic environment. The dynamicity of heterogeneous IoT data causes concept drift issues that result in performance degradation and automation difficulties in detecting DDoS. In this study, we propose an adaptive online DDoS attack detection framework that detects and adapts to concept drifts in streaming data using a number of features often used in DDoS attack detection. This paper also proposes a novel accuracy update weighted probability averaging ensemble (AUWPAE) approach to detect concept drift and optimize zero-day DDoS detection. We evaluated the proposed framework using IoTID20 and CICIoT2023 dataset containing benign and DDoS traffic data. The results show that the proposed adaptive online DDoS attack detection framework is able to detect DDoS attacks with an accuracy of 99.54% and 99.33% for the respective datasets.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a serious threat to commercial service network. DDoS attack has been studied for years. However, detecting and relieving DDoS attacks are still a problem. Especially, nowadays more and more DDoS attacks produce heavy network traffic, it is hard to response rapidly because that needs high processing performance to process massive traffic data. With big data technology, volumes of network traffic data can be processed much faster. Apache Spark can process a great amount of data in a reasonable time so that DDoS attack can be detected in time. Besides, it is difficult to modify the network configuration in traditional network. With Software-Defined Networking (SDN), a new paradigm in networking, networking can be controlled by programs, which makes modifying the network configuration easier. In this paper, a DDoS detection and mitigation system framework in SDN is introduced, a framework that can control network based on analyzing the network traffic data. Comparing to the traditional defense methods of DDoS attack, the framework can response to DDoS attack by rules automatically.

The rapid growth of the internet and the increasing reliance on digital infrastructures have posed significant challenges to cybersecurity. Among the other variants of attacks, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have emerged as one of the most destructive and common threats. These attacks disrupt or slow down network services by overwhelming the network infrastructure with a massive volume of malicious traffic. To effectively identify and mitigate DDoS attacks, machine learning techniques have been extensively employed in intrusion detection systems. Machine learning approaches offer the advantage of automating the detection process by learning patterns and characteristics of DDoS attacks from historical data. Researchers have explored various machine learning algorithms such as K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and Naïve Bayes to classify and detect DDoS attacks. These algorithms leverage features extracted from network traffic data, including packet size, packet delay patterns, and traffic behaviour, to differentiate between normal and malicious traffic.

The need for robust and efficient Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack detection methods has become increasingly evident in today's networked world. Existing approaches, while commendable, often exhibit limitations that hinder their effectiveness. This paper introduces an innovative approach that leverages Local Outlier Factor (LOF) in conjunction with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for unsupervised DDoS attack detection. Existing methods often fall short in addressing the evolving nature of DDoS attacks, struggling to maintain precision, accuracy, and recall rates. Our proposed model addresses these limitations by harnessing the power of LOF and PCA, offering a more adaptive and dynamic detection framework. LOF enables the identification of outliers in network traffic patterns, while PCA reduces the dimensionality of the data, enhancing the model's efficiency and speed. The advantages of our approach are manifold. It not only achieves superior performance in terms of precision, accuracy, recall, speed, and Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) when compared to existing methods but also ensures a higher level of adaptability in detecting emerging DDoS attack vectors & sets. This adaptability is critical in today's ever-evolving threat landscape. The impact of this work extends beyond the realm of academia. In practical terms, our model offers network administrators a potent tool for safeguarding their infrastructures against DDoS attacks. By improving detection rates and reducing false positives, it contributes to the overall security posture of networks, ensuring uninterrupted services and enhanced user experience levels.

Software-Defined Network (SDN) is a new networking paradigm that adopts centralized control logic and provides more control to the network operators over the network infrastructure to meet future network requirements. SDN controller known as operation system, which is responsible for running network applications and maintaining the different network services and functionalities. Despite all its great capabilities, SDN is facing different security threats due to its various architectural entities and centralized nature. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is a promptly growing attack and becomes a major threat for the SDN. To date, most of the studies focus on detecting high-rate DDoS attacks at the control layer of SDN and low-rate DDoS attacks are high concealed because they are difficult to detect. Furthermore, the existing methods are useful for the detection of high-rate DDoS, so need to focus on low-rate DDoS attacks separately. Hence, the use of machine learning algorithms is growing for the detection of low-rate DDoS attacks in the SDN, but they achieved low accuracy against this attack. To improve the detection accuracy, this paper first describes the attack's mechanism and then proposes a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) based method. The extracted features from the flow rules are used by the RNN for the detection of low-rate attacks. The experimental results show that the proposed method intelligently detects the attack, and its detection accuracy reaches 98.59%. The proposed method achieves good detection accuracy as compared to existing studies.