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Link to original content: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-018-2263-3
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A machine learning approach for feature selection traffic classification using security analysis

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Abstract

Class imbalance has become a big problem that leads to inaccurate traffic classification. Accurate traffic classification of traffic flows helps us in security monitoring, IP management, intrusion detection, etc. To address the traffic classification problem, in literature, machine learning (ML) approaches are widely used. Therefore, in this paper, we also proposed an ML-based hybrid feature selection algorithm named WMI_AUC that make use of two metrics: weighted mutual information (WMI) metric and area under ROC curve (AUC). These metrics select effective features from a traffic flow. However, in order to select robust features from the selected features, we proposed robust features selection algorithm. The proposed approach increases the accuracy of ML classifiers and helps in detecting malicious traffic. We evaluate our work using 11 well-known ML classifiers on the different network environment traces datasets. Experimental results showed that our algorithms achieve more than 95% flow accuracy results.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 61571144.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China

    Muhammad Shafiq & Xiangzhan Yu

  2. Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Faroe Islands, Faroe Islands, Denmark

    Ali Kashif Bashir

  3. Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Hassan Nazeer Chaudhry

  4. National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center, Beijing, China

    Dawei Wang

Authors
  1. Muhammad Shafiq
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  2. Xiangzhan Yu
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  3. Ali Kashif Bashir
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  4. Hassan Nazeer Chaudhry
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  5. Dawei Wang
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Correspondence to Muhammad Shafiq.

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Shafiq, M., Yu, X., Bashir, A.K. et al. A machine learning approach for feature selection traffic classification using security analysis. J Supercomput 74, 4867–4892 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-018-2263-3

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