Anomaly detection in network traffic with ELSC learning algorithm

Abstract

In recent years, the internet has not only enhanced the quality of our lives but also made us susceptible to high-frequency cyber-attacks on communication networks. Detecting such attacks on network traffic is made possible by intrusion detection systems (IDS). IDSs can be broadly divided into two groups based on the type of detection they provide. According to the established rules, the first signature-based IDS detects threats. Secondly, anomaly-based IDS detects abnormal conditions in the network. Various machine and deep learning approaches have been used to detect anomalies in network traffic in the past. To improve the detection of anomalies in network traffic, researchers have compared several machine learning models, such as support vector machines (SVM), logistic regressions (LRs), K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN), Nave Bayes (NBs), and boosting algorithms. The accuracy, precision, and recall of many studies have been satisfactory to an extent. Therefore, this paper proposes an ensemble learning-based stacking classifier (ELSC) to achieve a better accuracy rate. In the proposed ELSC algorithm, KNN, NB, LR, and Decision Trees (DT) served as the base classifiers, while SVM served as the meta classifier. Based on a Network Intrusion detection dataset provided by Kaggle.com, ELSC is compared to base classifiers such as KNN, NB, LR, DT, SVM, and Linear Discriminate Analysis. As a result of the simulations, the proposed ELBS stacking classifier was found to outperform the other comparative models and converge with an accuracy of 99.4%.