Publication Date

Spring 2023

Degree Type

Master's Project

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Computer Science

First Advisor

Robert Chun

Second Advisor

Faranak Abri

Third Advisor

Revanth K Maddula

Keywords

Machine Learning, Anomaly detection, NSS-KDD Dataset, Cloud resources, Neural networks, DDoS attack.

Abstract

Anomaly detection is an important activity in cloud computing systems because it aids in the identification of odd behaviours or actions that may result in software glitch, security breaches, and performance difficulties. Detecting aberrant resource utilization trends in virtual machines is a typical application of anomaly detection in cloud computing (VMs). Currently, the most serious cyber threat is distributed denial-of-service attacks. The afflicted server's resources and internet traffic resources, such as bandwidth and buffer size, are slowed down by restricting the server's capacity to give resources to legitimate customers.

To recognize attacks and common occurrences, machine learning techniques such as Quadratic Support Vector Machines (QSVM), Random Forest, and neural network models such as MLP and Autoencoders are employed. Various machine learning algorithms are used on the optimised NSL-KDD dataset to provide an efficient and accurate predictor of network intrusions. In this research, we propose a neural network based model and experiment on various central and spiral rearrangements of the features for distinguishing between different types of attacks and support our approach of better preservation of feature structure with image representations. The results are analysed and compared to existing models and prior research. The outcomes of this study have practical implications for improving the security and performance of cloud computing systems, specifically in the area of identifying and mitigating network intrusions.

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