Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection

Botnet attacks can overwhelm networks and severely affect the availability of services. Anomaly based detection techniques using machine learning are effective against zero-day attacks. However, they require complex data preprocessing and feature extraction which can affect the early detection of bo...

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محفوظ في:
التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
المؤلف الرئيسي: Rajesh Thomas (author)
مؤلفون آخرون: Suleiman Yerima (author), Khaled Shaalan (author)
منشور في: 2025
الوصول للمادة أونلاين:https://bspace.buid.ac.ae/handle/1234/3146
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author Rajesh Thomas
author2 Suleiman Yerima
Khaled Shaalan
author2_role author
author
author_facet Rajesh Thomas
Suleiman Yerima
Khaled Shaalan
author_role author
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Rajesh Thomas
Suleiman Yerima
Khaled Shaalan
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025-05-31T10:28:43Z
2025-05-31T10:28:43Z
2025
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv Thomas, R., Yerima, S., Shaalan, K. (2025). Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection. In: Al Marri, K., Mir, F.A., Awad, A., Abubakar, A. (eds) BUiD Doctoral Research Conference 2024. BDRC 2024. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 587. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84371-6_24
HB: 9783031843709 eBook: 9783031843716
https://bspace.buid.ac.ae/handle/1234/3146
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv en
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer Cham
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering ; 587
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv Book chapter
description Botnet attacks can overwhelm networks and severely affect the availability of services. Anomaly based detection techniques using machine learning are effective against zero-day attacks. However, they require complex data preprocessing and feature extraction which can affect the early detection of botnet attacks. In this paper we propose a novel approach, for early detection of botnet attacks using machine learning models that learn from byte representation of raw network traffic flows. The study departs from the traditional approach of network-based intrusion detection which relies on flow statistics and other hand-crafted features. We discuss our framework which includes light weight network traffic pre-processing, transformation, and model training. We used the CTU-13 dataset to evaluate the proposed byte-based botnet detection system. Our results show that byte-based representation can provide an effective and ultra lightweight means of developing network intrusion detection systems that can match the performance of traditional approaches, while also enabling early detection of botnet attacks. In our experiments we achieved accuracy of 99.9% consistently across different byte stream sizes for the Decision Tree and Logistic Regression classifiers.
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identifier_str_mv Thomas, R., Yerima, S., Shaalan, K. (2025). Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection. In: Al Marri, K., Mir, F.A., Awad, A., Abubakar, A. (eds) BUiD Doctoral Research Conference 2024. BDRC 2024. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 587. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84371-6_24
HB: 9783031843709 eBook: 9783031843716
language_invalid_str_mv en
network_acronym_str budr
network_name_str The British University in Dubai repository
oai_identifier_str oai:bspace.buid.ac.ae:1234/3146
publishDate 2025
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer Cham
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository_id_str
spelling Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack DetectionRajesh ThomasSuleiman YerimaKhaled ShaalanBotnet attacks can overwhelm networks and severely affect the availability of services. Anomaly based detection techniques using machine learning are effective against zero-day attacks. However, they require complex data preprocessing and feature extraction which can affect the early detection of botnet attacks. In this paper we propose a novel approach, for early detection of botnet attacks using machine learning models that learn from byte representation of raw network traffic flows. The study departs from the traditional approach of network-based intrusion detection which relies on flow statistics and other hand-crafted features. We discuss our framework which includes light weight network traffic pre-processing, transformation, and model training. We used the CTU-13 dataset to evaluate the proposed byte-based botnet detection system. Our results show that byte-based representation can provide an effective and ultra lightweight means of developing network intrusion detection systems that can match the performance of traditional approaches, while also enabling early detection of botnet attacks. In our experiments we achieved accuracy of 99.9% consistently across different byte stream sizes for the Decision Tree and Logistic Regression classifiers.Springer Cham2025-05-31T10:28:43Z2025-05-31T10:28:43Z2025Book chapterThomas, R., Yerima, S., Shaalan, K. (2025). Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection. In: Al Marri, K., Mir, F.A., Awad, A., Abubakar, A. (eds) BUiD Doctoral Research Conference 2024. BDRC 2024. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 587. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84371-6_24HB: 9783031843709 eBook: 9783031843716https://bspace.buid.ac.ae/handle/1234/3146enLecture Notes in Civil Engineering ; 587oai:bspace.buid.ac.ae:1234/31462025-05-31T10:28:45Z
spellingShingle Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection
Rajesh Thomas
title Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection
title_full Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection
title_fullStr Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection
title_full_unstemmed Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection
title_short Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection
title_sort Leveraging Network Traffic Byte-Streams for Machine Learning Based Early Botnet Attack Detection
url https://bspace.buid.ac.ae/handle/1234/3146