Optimizing the Classification of Network Intrusion Detection Using Ensembles of Decision Trees Algorithm

One of the key challenges of the machine learning (ML) based intrusion detection system (IDS) is the expensive computation time which is largely caused by the redundant, incomplete, and unrelated features contain in the IDS datasets. To overcome such challenges and ensure building efficient and more accurate IDS models, many researchers utilize preprocessing techniques such as normalization and feature selection, and a hybrid modeling approach is typically used. In this work, we propose a hybrid IDS modeling approach with an algorithm for feature selection (FS) and another for building the IDS. The FS method is a wrapper-based FS with a decision tree as the feature evaluator. Five selected ML algorithms are individually used in combination with the proposed FS method to build five IDS models using the UNSW-NB15 dataset. As a baseline, five more IDS models are built, in a single modeling approach, using the full features of the datasets. We evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed method by comparing it with the baseline models and also with state-of-the-art works. Our method achieves the best DR of 97.95% and proved to be quite effective in comparison to state-of-the-art works. We, therefore, recommend its usage especially in IDS modeling with the UNSW-NB15 dataset.

Chapter 5 - Intrusion Prevention and Detection Systems

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.

Systems employing the Internet and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are alternative to the legacy landline telephony system. The services offered by these systems allow users to communicate with their family members, friends, banks and business partners whenever they are online. Particularly, the VoIP service is popular with the Internet users because charges are bound into usually fixed access costs making the price of the long distance calls themselves appear economical and even free. However, VoIP services have several disadvantages. One of the disadvantages of VoIP is, it is exposed to Internet security vulnerabilities, threats and attacks. The attacks come in many forms. One of the methods to attack the VoIP service, is by sending a Spam over Internet Telephony (SPIT). SPIT is normally executed by malicious parties initiating automated, unsolicited, and unwanted communications that used VoIP or video conferencing services, just like an email SPAM. Solutions to mitigate SPIT are still lacking. To defense a VoIP system from SPIT, we have come out with the idea of Automated Intrusion Detection and Prevention System over SPIT (AIDPoS) that can detect and prevent SPIT from external parties to enter the VoIP network. AIDPoS is a combination system of Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) on Voice over IP (VoIP) server. This is an experimental research to find a solution to combat SPIT if it happens in the future. Our result shows that an automated Intrusion detection and Prevention system over SPIT attack is feasible. Our work is on an open source VoIP network. Other vulnerabilities and threats are important, but beyond our research scope and is not covered in this paper.

Intrusion detection is a significant technique for detecting various attacks in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) powered by machine learning algorithms play a vital role in enhancing security by actively monitoring data traffic in real-time. The performance of attack detection in IDS is reduced by the existence of noisy and unwanted features in the network data. Hence, extracting Informative Features (IF) is essential for enhancing the effectiveness of the IDS. The proposed approach optimally selects IF from the network dataset, which facilitates in accurately detecting intrusions. Existing methods lack in efficient feature selection, leading to higher computational complexity and lower detection performance. This research aims to enhance IDS accuracy by leveraging the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) algorithm to classify the intrusions in the mesh network of smart grid and the optimal feature selection carried out with the help of Golden Eagle Optimization Algorithm (GEOA). This novel hybrid IDS model enhances the attack detection in WMNs. The proposed IDS’s performance is improved by using a feature selection method based on the GEOA, and then obtained results are compared against evolutionary algorithms-based features selection method. The proposed model of IDS using XGBoost algorithm is tested on a smart grid dataset, and its performance is compared with existing literature works.

For the past few years, it has been seen that the computer intrusion attacks are becoming more sophisticated, and the volume, velocity, and variance of traffic data have greatly increased. Because the conventional methods and tools have become impotent in the detection of intrusion attacks, most intrusion detection systems now embrace the use of machine learning tools and algorithms for efficiency. This is because of their ability to process large volume, velocity, and very high variance data. This work reviews and analyzes the performance of three out of the most commonly used machine learning algorithms in network intrusion. In this work, the performance of Naive Bayes, decision tree, and random forest algorithms were evaluated as they were being trained and tested with the KDD CUP 1999 dataset from DARPA using a big data and machine learning tool called Weka. These classification algorithms are evaluated based on their precision, sensitivity, and accuracy.

Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are used in analyzing huge data and diagnose anomaly traffic such as DDoS attack; thus, an efficient traffic classification method is necessary for the IDS. The IDS models attempt to decrease false alarm and increase true alarm rates in order to improve the performance accuracy of the system. To resolve this concern, three machine learning algorithms have been tested and evaluated in this research which are decision jungle (DJ), random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM). The main objective is to propose a ML-based network intrusion detection system (ML-based NIDS) model that compares the performance of the three algorithms based on their accuracy and precision of anomaly traffics. The knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) methodology and intrusion detection evaluation dataset (CIC-IDS2017) are used in the testing which both are considered as a benchmark in the evaluation of IDS. The average accuracy results of the SVM is 98.18%, RF is 96.76% and DJ is 96.50% in which the highest accuracy is achieved by the SVM. The average precision results of the SVM is 98.74, RF is 97.96 and DJ is 97.82 in which the SVM got a higher average precision compared with the other two algorithms. The average recall results of the SVM is 95.63, RF is 97.62 and DJ is 95.77 in which the RF achieves the highest average of recall than SVM and DJ. In overall, the SVM algorithm is found to be the best algorithm that can be used to detect an intrusion in the system.

В статье представлено развитие сигнатурного подхода обнаружения вторжений на основе кластеризации и дерева решений. Также предложен оригинальный способ разработки аномального подхода к обнаружению вторжений, разработана модель функционирования гибридной системы обнаружения вторжений, отличающаяся от известных большей точностью обнаружения, меньшим процентом ложных тревог, приоритезацией сетевых пакетов для анализа, а также решающей основные недостатки аномального и сигнатурного подхода. Introduction: Alongside the development of the Internet, network security has become a crucial requirement. Bugs in software and operating systems result in an increasing number of previously unknown intrusions discovered every day. The harm caused by these intrusions is becoming more and more dangerous. Firewalls can't ensure a complete protection of the network, because they prevent external threats and don't maintain internal attacks. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) solve this problem. The aim of the research is to develop a model of a hybrid intrusion detection system that will use a combination of improved detection methods based on anomalous and signature approach to increase detection accuracy and reduce the level of false alarms. Tasks: development of an improvement for the signature detection method, development of a unique anomaly detection method, development of a unique hybrid model of the intrusion detection system. Methods. To improve the signature detection method, we used machine learning, in particular the C5 algorithm, as well as decision trees. In addition to this, there are presented: storing signature rules with their partial structure in the MongoDB database, the process of clustering rules, building and detecting with the use of a decision tree. There are presented a unique method for detecting anomalies in network traffic with the use of machine learning methods and the theory of finite automata. Besides, there are shown: the detection process with the use of the sliding window technique, machine learning and time automaton; storage of trained models in the MongoDB database, the process of loading anomalies into the signature database with the use of RabbitMQ. Findings. The hybrid IDS with increased detection accuracy and reduced false alarm rate was developed. The developed system was compared with the well-known open-source solutions Snort and Suricata. The signature detection method was improved with machine learning and decision trees, and a unique anomaly detection method that uses machine learning and a time automaton was presented. It allows to detect previously unknown attacks. The practical significance of the work is the partial implementation of the developed system for the Infologistik24 LLC company.

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. …

Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread, interconnected digital technology with numerous users. New standards add more concerns with tremendous information gathered from various network sources, which can be utilized for focused cyber-attacks. Digital attacks in networks are getting more complex and subsequently introducing expanding difficulties in precisely distinguishing network intrusions. Inability to forestall the network intrusions could debase the validity of safety administrations, for example, information privacy, trustworthiness, and accessibility. In this work, we center around developing a Network Intrusion Detection System which is implemented utilizing Machine Learning Techniques. IDS dependent on ML techniques are successful and exact in distinguishing varied networks intrusions. Also, many of the ML-based IDS experience the ill effects of an increment in false-positive rate, leading to lower precision and accuracy. Consequently, we present an exploration of the UNSW-NB15 intrusion detection dataset that will be utilized for preparing the machine learning models. In our tests, we carry out various ML approaches namely, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Logistic Regression (LR), Random Forest Classifier (RF), Decision Tree (DT), Gradient boosted decision trees (GBDT). The results demonstrated that the hyperparameter optimization technique using Grid Search and Random Search methods and evaluation using k-fold cross-validation gives better optimization of model parameters and henceforth brings about better execution.KeywordsCross-validationCyberattackDecision tree (DT)Gradient boosted decision trees (GBDT)Hyperparameter TuningLogistic regression (LR)Network intrusion detection system (IDS)Random forest classifier (RF)Support vector machine (SVM)

Anomaly based Intrusion Detection System (IDS) identifies intrusion by training itself to recognize acceptable behavior of the network. It then raises an alarm whenever any anomalous network behaviors outside the boundaries of its training sets are observed. However, anomaly based IDS are usually prone to high false positive rate due to difficulties involved in defining normal and abnormal network traffic patterns. In this paper, we employ two different statistical methods viz. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Logistic Regression (LR) to develop new anomaly based IDS models. We then evaluate the performance of these IDS models on the benchmark NSL-KDD data set and analyze their performance against other IDS models based on Naive Bayes, C4.5 and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Experimental results show that the performance (Accuracy and Detection Rate) of both the LDA and the LR based models are at par and in some cases even better than other IDS models. Moreover, unlike the IDS model based on complex method like the SVM, the proposed LDA and LR based IDS models are computationally more efficient, which makes them more suited for deployment in real time network monitoring and intrusion detection analysis.

Intrusion detection system (IDS) is constructed primarily to detect and block malicious attacks on a network. Several artificial intelligence techniques and genetic algorithms are utilized to construct IDS. In this paper, a model for intrusion detection system is developed using a correlation-based feature selection system integrated with bagging. This model focuses only on detection of malicious actions on a network. Correlation-based feature selection (CFS) is a feature selection technique which is based on test theory and developed beforehand by using real and artificial problems. Comparatively, it is faster and significantly improves the performance of the learning algorithm. Bagging is a machine learning algorithm which is a variation of decision tree algorithm. This paper presents the experimental results by utilizing the Kyoto intrusion detection dataset and the results show that CFS with bagging performs better in comparison with other supervised classifiers.KeywordsAdaBoostAdapativeBaggingBoostingClassifierFeature selectionIntrusionKNN

Network security is one of the important issues that should be handled carefully and security to our data and important information is necessary when communicating with outside world over the internet. We have so many examples of the attacks that have been happened in the past and threatened a huge loss to the world. Over the years, a lot of work is done in this area and many security systems are developed, many security algorithms are implemented which have strong security fundamentals. Also, these systems have proven strong at the time of highly insecurity incidences or attacks. But, the problem is still there in identifying the malicious node entry in the network correctly without any false positives or false negatives, also within quick time before getting any type of access to the network by such malicious nodes which are also called as intruders. We need a system which should be operating faster even in heavy incoming network traffic scenarios, and generating correct identification of the intruders as well as giving easy, faster network access to non intruders or normal connecting nodes by correctly identifying them as normal nodes. In this research work, we are carrying out the implementation of the Intrusion detection System (IDS) model which performs faster as well as classifies the communicating nodes correctly as intruder or normal user. This IDS model is being implemented in two phases, hence a Two Phase Intrusion Detection System, abbreviated and named as TP-IDS model. We are using the machine learning techniques to develop this model, which makes this model a strongly secure IDS model and helping to better identify the known as well as unkown attack. We are using first phase for the identification and second phase for the validation of the first phase results of our model, which provides high accuracy. In first phase of the IDS we are using Support Vector Machine (SVM), k Nearest Neighbor (kNN) and in second phase we are using Decision Tree (DT), Naive Bayes (NB) for first phase validation. Also, the issue of efficiency is handled by underlying data processing infrastructure, which is HADOOP that increases efficiency or speed of the TP-IDS.

With the advancement of network technologies, new threats and attacks have started to gain space. These have put the safety of the network at stake. These threats and attacks could be significantly detected by a Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS). The existing NIDS makes use of classical ML algorithms that fail to detect new attacks. This happens because the traditional systems are often built on selection-based intrusion detection techniques which only detect the attacks for which they are trained for. Another intrusion detection technique is anomaly-based detection which is capable of detecting new attacks if an unsupervised method is used. But this system suffers from high false-positive rates. Hence, this work proposes such a hybrid system where a combination of signature-based detection algorithm(Decision Tree, Naive Bayes, or its variants) with an unsupervised (clustered) anomaly-based detection algorithm (DBSCAN or Isolation Forest) is used to detect both studied as well as novel attacks. The proposed work is aimed to improve the detection rate and lowering the false alarm rate.

The objective of this paper is to build a practical intrusion detection system for wireless sensor networks which analyze the characteristics of traffic patterns and identify the intrusive activities in the network. It is to show that the choice of efficient and fast decision tree paradigm for intrusion detection with optimal features enhance the detection capability as well as saves energy, computation and memory of sensor networks. In addition, various rule based decision tree classifiers like Alternating Decision Tree, Decision Stump, J48, Logical Model Tree, Naive Bayes Tree and Fast Decision Tree learner have been compared with a family of Hoeffding rule based decision tree which shows better and fast detection capability. The evaluation of the enhanced feature space and the decision tree paradigm, on three different public dataset containing normal and anomalous data have been performed for various Hoeffding as well as other decision tree algorithms. With this approach it is proved that Hoeffding tree are best suited for online detection and handling of streaming sensor data with the efficient usage of memory in a resource constraint environment like sensor networks