Network Traffic Synthesis and Simulation Framework for Cybersecurity Exercise Systems

In the rapidly evolving field of cybersecurity,the challenge of providing realistic exercise scenarios that accurately mimic real-world threats has become increasingly critical.Traditional methods often fall short in capturing the dynamic and complex nature of modern cyber threats.To address this gap,we propose a comprehensive framework designed to create authentic network environments tailored for cybersecurity exercise systems.Our framework leverages advanced simulation techniques to generate scenarios that mirror actual network conditions faced by professionals in the field.The cornerstone of our approach is the use of a conditional tabular generative adversarial network(CTGAN),a sophisticated tool that synthesizes realistic synthetic network traffic by learning fromreal data patterns.This technology allows us to handle technical components and sensitive information with high fidelity,ensuring that the synthetic data maintains statistical characteristics similar to those observed in real network environments.By meticulously analyzing the data collected from various network layers and translating these into structured tabular formats,our framework can generate network traffic that closely resembles that found in actual scenarios.An integral part of our process involves deploying this synthetic data within a simulated network environment,structured on software-defined networking(SDN)principles,to test and refine the traffic patterns.This simulation not only facilitates a direct comparison between the synthetic and real traffic but also enables us to identify discrepancies and refine the accuracy of our simulations.Our initial findings indicate an error rate of approximately 29.28%between the synthetic and real traffic data,highlighting areas for further improvement and adjustment.By providing a diverse array of network scenarios through our framework,we aim to enhance the exercise systems used by cybersecurity professionals.This not only improves their ability to respond to actual cyber threats but also ensures that the exercise is cost-effective and efficient.

Classified VPN Network Traffic Flow Using Time Related to Artificial Neural Network

VPNs are vital for safeguarding communication routes in the continually changing cybersecurity world.However,increasing network attack complexity and variety require increasingly advanced algorithms to recognize and categorizeVPNnetwork data.We present a novelVPNnetwork traffic flowclassificationmethod utilizing Artificial Neural Networks(ANN).This paper aims to provide a reliable system that can identify a virtual private network(VPN)traffic fromintrusion attempts,data exfiltration,and denial-of-service assaults.We compile a broad dataset of labeled VPN traffic flows from various apps and usage patterns.Next,we create an ANN architecture that can handle encrypted communication and distinguish benign from dangerous actions.To effectively process and categorize encrypted packets,the neural network model has input,hidden,and output layers.We use advanced feature extraction approaches to improve the ANN’s classification accuracy by leveraging network traffic’s statistical and behavioral properties.We also use cutting-edge optimizationmethods to optimize network characteristics and performance.The suggested ANN-based categorization method is extensively tested and analyzed.Results show the model effectively classifies VPN traffic types.We also show that our ANN-based technique outperforms other approaches in precision,recall,and F1-score with 98.79%accuracy.This study improves VPN security and protects against new cyberthreats.Classifying VPNtraffic flows effectively helps enterprises protect sensitive data,maintain network integrity,and respond quickly to security problems.This study advances network security and lays the groundwork for ANN-based cybersecurity solutions.

Abnormal Traffic Detection for Internet of Things Based on an Improved Residual Network

Along with the progression of Internet of Things(IoT)technology,network terminals are becoming continuously more intelligent.IoT has been widely applied in various scenarios,including urban infrastructure,transportation,industry,personal life,and other socio-economic fields.The introduction of deep learning has brought new security challenges,like an increment in abnormal traffic,which threatens network security.Insufficient feature extraction leads to less accurate classification results.In abnormal traffic detection,the data of network traffic is high-dimensional and complex.This data not only increases the computational burden of model training but also makes information extraction more difficult.To address these issues,this paper proposes an MD-MRD-ResNeXt model for abnormal network traffic detection.To fully utilize the multi-scale information in network traffic,a Multi-scale Dilated feature extraction(MD)block is introduced.This module can effectively understand and process information at various scales and uses dilated convolution technology to significantly broaden the model’s receptive field.The proposed Max-feature-map Residual with Dual-channel pooling(MRD)block integrates the maximum feature map with the residual block.This module ensures the model focuses on key information,thereby optimizing computational efficiency and reducing unnecessary information redundancy.Experimental results show that compared to the latest methods,the proposed abnormal traffic detection model improves accuracy by about 2%.

Applying an Improved Dung Beetle Optimizer Algorithm to Network Traffic Identification

Network traffic identification is critical for maintaining network security and further meeting various demands of network applications.However,network traffic data typically possesses high dimensionality and complexity,leading to practical problems in traffic identification data analytics.Since the original Dung Beetle Optimizer(DBO)algorithm,Grey Wolf Optimization(GWO)algorithm,Whale Optimization Algorithm(WOA),and Particle Swarm Optimization(PSO)algorithm have the shortcomings of slow convergence and easily fall into the local optimal solution,an Improved Dung Beetle Optimizer(IDBO)algorithm is proposed for network traffic identification.Firstly,the Sobol sequence is utilized to initialize the dung beetle population,laying the foundation for finding the global optimal solution.Next,an integration of levy flight and golden sine strategy is suggested to give dung beetles a greater probability of exploring unvisited areas,escaping from the local optimal solution,and converging more effectively towards a global optimal solution.Finally,an adaptive weight factor is utilized to enhance the search capabilities of the original DBO algorithm and accelerate convergence.With the improvements above,the proposed IDBO algorithm is then applied to traffic identification data analytics and feature selection,as so to find the optimal subset for K-Nearest Neighbor(KNN)classification.The simulation experiments use the CICIDS2017 dataset to verify the effectiveness of the proposed IDBO algorithm and compare it with the original DBO,GWO,WOA,and PSO algorithms.The experimental results show that,compared with other algorithms,the accuracy and recall are improved by 1.53%and 0.88%in binary classification,and the Distributed Denial of Service(DDoS)class identification is the most effective in multi-classification,with an improvement of 5.80%and 0.33%for accuracy and recall,respectively.Therefore,the proposed IDBO algorithm is effective in increasing the efficiency of traffic identification and solving the problem of the original DBO algorithm that converges slowly and falls into the local optimal solution when dealing with high-dimensional data analytics and feature selection for network traffic identification.

Network traffic classification:Techniques,datasets,and challenges

In network traffic classification,it is important to understand the correlation between network traffic and its causal application,protocol,or service group,for example,in facilitating lawful interception,ensuring the quality of service,preventing application choke points,and facilitating malicious behavior identification.In this paper,we review existing network classification techniques,such as port-based identification and those based on deep packet inspection,statistical features in conjunction with machine learning,and deep learning algorithms.We also explain the implementations,advantages,and limitations associated with these techniques.Our review also extends to publicly available datasets used in the literature.Finally,we discuss existing and emerging challenges,as well as future research directions.

Predicting Traffic Flow Using Dynamic Spatial-Temporal Graph Convolution Networks

Traffic flow prediction plays a key role in the construction of intelligent transportation system.However,due to its complex spatio-temporal dependence and its uncertainty,the research becomes very challenging.Most of the existing studies are based on graph neural networks that model traffic flow graphs and try to use fixed graph structure to deal with the relationship between nodes.However,due to the time-varying spatial correlation of the traffic network,there is no fixed node relationship,and these methods cannot effectively integrate the temporal and spatial features.This paper proposes a novel temporal-spatial dynamic graph convolutional network(TSADGCN).The dynamic time warping algorithm(DTW)is introduced to calculate the similarity of traffic flow sequence among network nodes in the time dimension,and the spatiotemporal graph of traffic flow is constructed to capture the spatiotemporal characteristics and dependencies of traffic flow.By combining graph attention network and time attention network,a spatiotemporal convolution block is constructed to capture spatiotemporal characteristics of traffic data.Experiments on open data sets PEMSD4 and PEMSD8 show that TSADGCN has higher prediction accuracy than well-known traffic flow prediction algorithms.

Real-Time Prediction of Urban Traffic Problems Based on Artificial Intelligence-Enhanced Mobile Ad Hoc Networks(MANETS)

Traffic in today’s cities is a serious problem that increases travel times,negatively affects the environment,and drains financial resources.This study presents an Artificial Intelligence(AI)augmentedMobile Ad Hoc Networks(MANETs)based real-time prediction paradigm for urban traffic challenges.MANETs are wireless networks that are based on mobile devices and may self-organize.The distributed nature of MANETs and the power of AI approaches are leveraged in this framework to provide reliable and timely traffic congestion forecasts.This study suggests a unique Chaotic Spatial Fuzzy Polynomial Neural Network(CSFPNN)technique to assess real-time data acquired from various sources within theMANETs.The framework uses the proposed approach to learn from the data and create predictionmodels to detect possible traffic problems and their severity in real time.Real-time traffic prediction allows for proactive actions like resource allocation,dynamic route advice,and traffic signal optimization to reduce congestion.The framework supports effective decision-making,decreases travel time,lowers fuel use,and enhances overall urban mobility by giving timely information to pedestrians,drivers,and urban planners.Extensive simulations and real-world datasets are used to test the proposed framework’s prediction accuracy,responsiveness,and scalability.Experimental results show that the suggested framework successfully anticipates urban traffic issues in real-time,enables proactive traffic management,and aids in creating smarter,more sustainable cities.

Energy-Efficient Traffic Offloading for RSMA-Based Hybrid Satellite Terrestrial Networks with Deep Reinforcement Learning

As the demands of massive connections and vast coverage rapidly grow in the next wireless communication networks, rate splitting multiple access(RSMA) is considered to be the new promising access scheme since it can provide higher efficiency with limited spectrum resources. In this paper, combining spectrum splitting with rate splitting, we propose to allocate resources with traffic offloading in hybrid satellite terrestrial networks. A novel deep reinforcement learning method is adopted to solve this challenging non-convex problem. However, the neverending learning process could prohibit its practical implementation. Therefore, we introduce the switch mechanism to avoid unnecessary learning. Additionally, the QoS constraint in the scheme can rule out unsuccessful transmission. The simulation results validates the energy efficiency performance and the convergence speed of the proposed algorithm.

Network Intrusion Traffic Detection Based on Feature Extraction

With the increasing dimensionality of network traffic,extracting effective traffic features and improving the identification accuracy of different intrusion traffic have become critical in intrusion detection systems(IDS).However,both unsupervised and semisupervised anomalous traffic detection methods suffer from the drawback of ignoring potential correlations between features,resulting in an analysis that is not an optimal set.Therefore,in order to extract more representative traffic features as well as to improve the accuracy of traffic identification,this paper proposes a feature dimensionality reduction method combining principal component analysis and Hotelling’s T^(2) and a multilayer convolutional bidirectional long short-term memory(MSC_BiLSTM)classifier model for network traffic intrusion detection.This method reduces the parameters and redundancy of the model by feature extraction and extracts the dependent features between the data by a bidirectional long short-term memory(BiLSTM)network,which fully considers the influence between the before and after features.The network traffic is first characteristically downscaled by principal component analysis(PCA),and then the downscaled principal components are used as input to Hotelling’s T^(2) to compare the differences between groups.For datasets with outliers,Hotelling’s T^(2) can help identify the groups where the outliers are located and quantitatively measure the extent of the outliers.Finally,a multilayer convolutional neural network and a BiLSTM network are used to extract the spatial and temporal features of network traffic data.The empirical consequences exhibit that the suggested approach in this manuscript attains superior outcomes in precision,recall and F1-score juxtaposed with the prevailing techniques.The results show that the intrusion detection accuracy,precision,and F1-score of the proposed MSC_BiLSTM model for the CIC-IDS 2017 dataset are 98.71%,95.97%,and 90.22%.

Cluster DetectionMethod of Endogenous Security Abnormal Attack Behavior in Air Traffic Control Network

In order to enhance the accuracy of Air Traffic Control(ATC)cybersecurity attack detection,in this paper,a new clustering detection method is designed for air traffic control network security attacks.The feature set for ATC cybersecurity attacks is constructed by setting the feature states,adding recursive features,and determining the feature criticality.The expected information gain and entropy of the feature data are computed to determine the information gain of the feature data and reduce the interference of similar feature data.An autoencoder is introduced into the AI(artificial intelligence)algorithm to encode and decode the characteristics of ATC network security attack behavior to reduce the dimensionality of the ATC network security attack behavior data.Based on the above processing,an unsupervised learning algorithm for clustering detection of ATC network security attacks is designed.First,determine the distance between the clustering clusters of ATC network security attack behavior characteristics,calculate the clustering threshold,and construct the initial clustering center.Then,the new average value of all feature objects in each cluster is recalculated as the new cluster center.Second,it traverses all objects in a cluster of ATC network security attack behavior feature data.Finally,the cluster detection of ATC network security attack behavior is completed by the computation of objective functions.The experiment took three groups of experimental attack behavior data sets as the test object,and took the detection rate,false detection rate and recall rate as the test indicators,and selected three similar methods for comparative test.The experimental results show that the detection rate of this method is about 98%,the false positive rate is below 1%,and the recall rate is above 97%.Research shows that this method can improve the detection performance of security attacks in air traffic control network.

Adaptive spatial-temporal graph attention network for traffic speed prediction

Considering the nonlinear structure and spatial-temporal correlation of traffic network,and the influence of potential correlation between nodes of traffic network on the spatial features,this paper proposes a traffic speed prediction model based on the combination of graph attention network with self-adaptive adjacency matrix(SAdpGAT)and bidirectional gated recurrent unit(BiGRU).First-ly,the model introduces graph attention network(GAT)to extract the spatial features of real road network and potential road network respectively in spatial dimension.Secondly,the spatial features are input into BiGRU to extract the time series features.Finally,the prediction results of the real road network and the potential road network are connected to generate the final prediction results of the model.The experimental results show that the prediction accuracy of the proposed model is im-proved obviously on METR-LA and PEMS-BAY datasets,which proves the advantages of the pro-posed spatial-temporal model in traffic speed prediction.

Multi-Head Attention Spatial-Temporal Graph Neural Networks for Traffic Forecasting

Accurate traffic prediction is crucial for an intelligent traffic system (ITS). However, the excessive non-linearity and complexity of the spatial-temporal correlation in traffic flow severely limit the prediction accuracy of most existing models, which simply stack temporal and spatial modules and fail to capture spatial-temporal features effectively. To improve the prediction accuracy, a multi-head attention spatial-temporal graph neural network (MSTNet) is proposed in this paper. First, the traffic data is decomposed into unique time spans that conform to positive rules, and valuable traffic node attributes are mined through an adaptive graph structure. Second, time and spatial features are captured using a multi-head attention spatial-temporal module. Finally, a multi-step prediction module is used to achieve future traffic condition prediction. Numerical experiments were conducted on an open-source dataset, and the results demonstrate that MSTNet performs well in spatial-temporal feature extraction and achieves more positive forecasting results than the baseline methods.

Prediction and Analysis of Elevator Traffic Flow under the LSTM Neural Network

Elevators are essential components of contemporary buildings, enabling efficient vertical mobility for occupants. However, the proliferation of tall buildings has exacerbated challenges such as traffic congestion within elevator systems. Many passengers experience dissatisfaction with prolonged wait times, leading to impatience and frustration among building occupants. The widespread adoption of neural networks and deep learning technologies across various fields and industries represents a significant paradigm shift, and unlocking new avenues for innovation and advancement. These cutting-edge technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to address complex challenges and optimize processes in diverse domains. In this study, LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) network technology is leveraged to analyze elevator traffic flow within a typical office building. By harnessing the predictive capabilities of LSTM, the research aims to contribute to advancements in elevator group control design, ultimately enhancing the functionality and efficiency of vertical transportation systems in built environments. The findings of this research have the potential to reference the development of intelligent elevator management systems, capable of dynamically adapting to fluctuating passenger demand and optimizing elevator usage in real-time. By enhancing the efficiency and functionality of vertical transportation systems, the research contributes to creating more sustainable, accessible, and user-friendly living environments for individuals across diverse demographics.

A Multilayer Perceptron Artificial Neural Network Study of Fatal Road Traffic Crashes

This paper examines the relationship between fatal road traffic accidents and potential predictors using multilayer perceptron artificial neural network (MLANN) models. The initial analysis employed twelve potential predictors, including traffic volume, prevailing weather conditions, roadway characteristics and features, drivers’ age and gender, and number of lanes. Based on the output of the model and the variables’ importance factors, seven significant variables are identified and used for further analysis to improve the performance of models. The model is optimized by systematically changing the parameters, including the number of hidden layers and the activation function of both the hidden and output layers. The performances of the MLANN models are evaluated using the percentage of the achieved accuracy, R-squared, and Sum of Square Error (SSE) functions.

Metaheuristic Optimization of Time Series Models for Predicting Networks Traffic

Traffic prediction of wireless networks attracted many researchersand practitioners during the past decades. However, wireless traffic frequentlyexhibits strong nonlinearities and complicated patterns, which makes it challengingto be predicted accurately. Many of the existing approaches forpredicting wireless network traffic are unable to produce accurate predictionsbecause they lack the ability to describe the dynamic spatial-temporalcorrelations of wireless network traffic data. In this paper, we proposed anovel meta-heuristic optimization approach based on fitness grey wolf anddipper throated optimization algorithms for boosting the prediction accuracyof traffic volume. The proposed algorithm is employed to optimize the hyperparametersof long short-term memory (LSTM) network as an efficient timeseries modeling approach which is widely used in sequence prediction tasks.To prove the superiority of the proposed algorithm, four other optimizationalgorithms were employed to optimize LSTM, and the results were compared.The evaluation results confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed approachin predicting the traffic of wireless networks accurately. On the other hand,a statistical analysis is performed to emphasize the stability of the proposedapproach.

Traffic prediction enabled dynamic access points switching for energy saving in dense networks

To meet the ever-increasing traffic demand and enhance the coverage of cellular networks,network densification is one of the crucial paradigms of 5G and beyond mobile networks,which can improve system capacity by deploying a large number of Access Points(APs)in the service area.However,since the energy consumption of APs generally accounts for a substantial part of the communication system,how to deal with the consequent energy issue is a challenging task for a mobile network with densely deployed APs.In this paper,we propose an intelligent AP switching on/off scheme to reduce the system energy consumption with the prerequisite of guaranteeing the quality of service,where the signaling overhead is also taken into consideration to ensure the stability of the network.First,based on historical traffic data,a long short-term memory method is introduced to predict the future traffic distribution,by which we can roughly determine when the AP switching operation should be triggered;second,we present an efficient three-step AP selection strategy to determine which of the APs would be switched on or off;third,an AP switching scheme with a threshold is proposed to adjust the switching frequency so as to improve the stability of the system.Experiment results indicate that our proposed traffic forecasting method performs well in practical scenarios,where the normalized root mean square error is within 10%.Furthermore,the achieved energy-saving is more than 28% on average with a reasonable outage probability and switching frequency for an area served by 40 APs in a commercial mobile network.

An Improved Jump Spider Optimization for Network Traffic Identification Feature Selection

The massive influx of traffic on the Internet has made the composition of web traffic increasingly complex.Traditional port-based or protocol-based network traffic identification methods are no longer suitable for today’s complex and changing networks.Recently,machine learning has beenwidely applied to network traffic recognition.Still,high-dimensional features and redundant data in network traffic can lead to slow convergence problems and low identification accuracy of network traffic recognition algorithms.Taking advantage of the faster optimizationseeking capability of the jumping spider optimization algorithm(JSOA),this paper proposes a jumping spider optimization algorithmthat incorporates the harris hawk optimization(HHO)and small hole imaging(HHJSOA).We use it in network traffic identification feature selection.First,the method incorporates the HHO escape energy factor and the hard siege strategy to forma newsearch strategy for HHJSOA.This location update strategy enhances the search range of the optimal solution of HHJSOA.We use small hole imaging to update the inferior individual.Next,the feature selection problem is coded to propose a jumping spiders individual coding scheme.Multiple iterations of the HHJSOA algorithmfind the optimal individual used as the selected feature for KNN classification.Finally,we validate the classification accuracy and performance of the HHJSOA algorithm using the UNSW-NB15 dataset and KDD99 dataset.Experimental results show that compared with other algorithms for the UNSW-NB15 dataset,the improvement is at least 0.0705,0.00147,and 1 on the accuracy,fitness value,and the number of features.In addition,compared with other feature selectionmethods for the same datasets,the proposed algorithmhas faster convergence,better merit-seeking,and robustness.Therefore,HHJSOAcan improve the classification accuracy and solve the problem that the network traffic recognition algorithm needs to be faster to converge and easily fall into local optimum due to high-dimensional features.

Design and Analysis of a Network Traffic Analysis Tool: NetFlow Analyzer

A network analyzer can often comprehend many protocols, which enables it to display talks taking place between hosts over a network. A network analyzer analyzes the device or network response and measures for the operator to keep an eye on the network’s or object’s performance in an RF circuit. The purpose of the following research includes analyzing the capabilities of NetFlow analyzer to measure various parts, including filters, mixers, frequency sensitive networks, transistors, and other RF-based instruments. NetFlow Analyzer is a network traffic analyzer that measures the network parameters of electrical networks. Although there are other types of network parameter sets including Y, Z, & H-parameters, these instruments are typically employed to measure S-parameters since transmission & reflection of electrical networks are simple to calculate at high frequencies. These analyzers are widely employed to distinguish between two-port networks, including filters and amplifiers. By allowing the user to view the actual data that is sent over a network, packet by packet, a network analyzer informs you of what is happening there. Also, this research will contain the design model of NetFlow Analyzer that Measurements involving transmission and reflection use. Gain, insertion loss, and transmission coefficient are measured in transmission measurements, whereas return loss, reflection coefficient, impedance, and other variables are measured in reflection measurements. These analyzers’ operational frequencies vary from 1 Hz to 1.5 THz. These analyzers can also be used to examine stability in measurements of open loops, audio components, and ultrasonics.

Detecting and Classifying Darknet Traffic Using Deep Network Chains

The anonymity of the darknet makes it attractive to secure communication lines from censorship.The analysis,monitoring,and categorization of Internet network traffic are essential for detecting darknet traffic that can generate a comprehensive characterization of dangerous users and assist in tracing malicious activities and reducing cybercrime.Furthermore,classifying darknet traffic is essential for real-time applications such as the timely monitoring of malware before attacks occur.This paper presents a two-stage deep network chain for detecting and classifying darknet traffic.In the first stage,anonymized darknet traffic,including VPN and Tor traffic related to hidden services provided by darknets,is detected.In the second stage,traffic related to VPNs and Tor services is classified based on their respective applications.The methodology of this paper was verified on a benchmark dataset containing VPN and Tor traffic.It achieved an accuracy of 96.8%and 94.4%in the detection and classification stages,respectively.Optimization and parameter tuning were performed in both stages to achieve more accurate results,enabling practitioners to combat alleged malicious activities and further detect such activities after outbreaks.In the classification stage,it was observed that the misclassifications were due to the audio and video streaming commonly used in shared real-time protocols.However,in cases where it is desired to distinguish between such activities accurately,the presented deep chain classifier can accommodate additional classifiers.Furthermore,additional classifiers could be added to the chain to categorize specific activities of interest further.

Survivability evaluation for networks carrying complex traffic flows

The capability of a system to fulfill its mission promptly in the presence of attacks,failures,or accidents is one of the qualitative definitions of survivability.In this paper,we propose a model for survivability quantification,which is acceptable for networks carrying complex traffic flows.Complex network traffic is considered as general multi-rate,heterogeneous traffic,where the individual bandwidth demands may aggregate in complex,nonlinear ways.Blocking probability is the chosen measure for survivability analysis.We study an arbitrary topology and some other known topologies for the network.Independent and dependent failure scenarios as well as deterministic and random traffic models are investigated.Finally,we provide survivability evaluation results for different network configurations.The results show that by using about 50%of the link capacity in networks with a relatively high number of links,the blocking probability remains near zero in the case of a limited number of failures.