Semi-supervised machine learning approach for DDoS detection

Even though advanced Machine Learning (ML) techniques have been adopted for DDoS detection, the attack remains a major threat of the Internet. Most of the existing ML-based DDoS detection approaches are under two categories: supervised and unsupervised. Supervised ML approaches for DDoS detection rely on availability of labeled network traffic datasets. Whereas, unsupervised ML approaches detect attacks by analyzing the incoming network traffic. Both approaches are challenged by large amount of network traffic data, low detection accuracy and high false positive rates. In this paper we present an online sequential semi-supervised ML approach for DDoS detection based on network Entropy estimation, Co-clustering, Information Gain Ratio and Exra-Trees algorithm. The unsupervised part of the approach allows to reduce the irrelevant normal traffic data for DDoS detection which allows to reduce false positive rates and increase accuracy. Whereas, the supervised part allows to reduce the false positive rates of the unsupervised part and to accurately classify the DDoS traffic. Various experiments were performed to evaluate the proposed approach using three public datasets namely NSL-KDD, UNB ISCX 12 and UNSW-NB15. An accuracy of 98.23%, 99.88% and 93.71% is achieved for respectively NSL-KDD, UNB ISCX 12 and UNSW-NB15 datasets, with respectively the false positive rates 0.33%, 0.35% and 0.46%.