Binary and Multiclass Cyberattack Classification on GeNIS Dataset

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the GeNIS dataset's effectiveness for AI-based network intrusion detection, demonstrating high accuracy in binary and multiclass cyberattack classification using feature selection and machine learning models.

Contribution

It provides an experimental validation of GeNIS for cyberattack detection and benchmarks various ML and DL models, highlighting their performance and efficiency.

Findings

ML ensembles slightly outperform DL models in accuracy and efficiency

Feature selection improves model computational efficiency

High accuracy and F1-scores achieved in classification tasks

Abstract

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) is a promising approach to tackle the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks. However, since Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) models rely heavily on the quality of their training data, the lack of diverse and up-to-date datasets hinders their generalization capability to detect malicious activity in previously unseen network traffic. This study presents an experimental validation of the reliability of the GeNIS dataset for AI-based NIDS, to serve as a baseline for future benchmarks. Five feature selection methods, Information Gain, Chi-Squared Test, Recursive Feature Elimination, Mean Absolute Deviation, and Dispersion Ratio, were combined to identify the most relevant features of GeNIS and reduce its dimensionality, enabling a more computationally efficient detection. Three decision tree ensembles and two deep neural networks were trained for both binary and multiclass classification tasks. All models reached high accuracy and F1-scores, and the ML ensembles achieved slightly better generalization while remaining more efficient than DL models. Overall, the obtained results indicate that the GeNIS dataset supports intelligent intrusion detection and cyberattack classification with time-based and quantity-based behavioral features.