WhatsThat? On the Usage of Hierarchical Clustering for Unsupervised Detection & Interpretation of Network Attacks

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68407700%3A21230%2F20%3A00342465" target="_blank" >RIV/68407700:21230/20:00342465 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/EuroSPW51379.2020.00084" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1109/EuroSPW51379.2020.00084</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/EuroSPW51379.2020.00084" target="_blank" >10.1109/EuroSPW51379.2020.00084</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

WhatsThat? On the Usage of Hierarchical Clustering for Unsupervised Detection & Interpretation of Network Attacks

Original language description

The automatic detection and interpretation of network attacks through machine learning is a well-known problem, for which no general solution is available. Supervised learning and anomaly detection approaches require prior knowledge about the system under analysis, either in terms of normal operation profiles or on the specific attacks to detect. As a consequence, both approaches have clear limitations when it comes to detecting, and in particular interpreting, previously unseen attacks and anomalies. In this paper we present WhatsThat, a novel approach to unsupervised network anomaly detection, which can both detect and interpret anomalous behaviors in a completely black-box manner, without relying on any ground-truth on the system under analysis. WhatsThat relies on hierarchical clustering techniques to discover and characterize anomalous patterns present in nested or hierarchically structured multidimensional data, which is common in network traffic e.g., due to multi-layer protocols. The solution uses unsupervised cluster validity metrics to automatically explore the data structure, and builds on automatic identification of relevant features to provide meaningful descriptions of the detected patterns. We showcase WhatsThat in the detection and interpretation of network attacks hidden in real, large-scale network traffic collected at a transit Internet backbone network. While WhatsThat is mainly tailored for unsupervised anomaly detection and interpretation, it can also be applied to the unsupervised analysis of any kind of nested or hierarchically structured multi-dimensional data, showing the potential of hierarchical clustering for general unsupervised data analytics.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

D - Article in proceedings

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

20202 - Communication engineering and systems

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2020

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Article name in the collection

2020 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW)

ISBN

978-1-7281-8597-2

ISSN

—

e-ISSN

—

Number of pages

10

Pages from-to

574-583

Publisher name

IEEE

Place of publication

Piscataway (New Jersey)

Event location

online

Event date

Sep 7, 2020

Type of event by nationality

WRD - Celosvětová akce

UT code for WoS article

000630275400073