Anomaly-based intrusion detection using Tree Augmented Naive Bayes Classifier

Abstract: With the rise of information technology and the dependence on these systems, it becomes increasingly more important to keep the systems secure. The possibility to detect an intrusion with intrusion detection systems (IDS) is one of multiple fundamental technologies that may increase the security of a system. One of the bigger challenges of an IDS, is to detect types of intrusions that have previously not been encountered, so called unknown intrusions. These types of intrusions are generally detected by using methods collectively called anomaly detection methods. In this thesis I evaluate the performance of the algorithm Tree Augmented Naive Bayes Classifier (TAN) as an intrusion detection classifier. More specifically, I created a TAN program from scratch in Python and tested the program on two data sets containing data traffic. The thesis aims to create a better understanding of how TAN works and evaluate if it is a reasonable algorithm for intrusion detection. The results show that TAN is able to perform at an acceptable level with a reasonably high accuracy. The results also highlights the importance of using the smoothing operator included in the standard version of TAN.