Architectural Selection Framework for Synthetic Network Traffic: Quantifying the Fidelity-Utility Trade-off

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Ammara, Dure Adan, Ding, Jianguo, Tutschku, Kurt
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Ammara, Dure Adan
Ding, Jianguo
Tutschku, Kurt
author_facet Ammara, Dure Adan
Ding, Jianguo
Tutschku, Kurt
contents The fidelity and utility of synthetic network traffic are critically compromised by architectural mismatch across heterogeneous network datasets and prevalent scalability failure. This study addresses this challenge by establishing an Architectural Selection Framework that empirically quantifies how data structure compatibility dictates the optimal fidelity-utility trade-off. We systematically evaluate twelve generative architectures (both non-AI and AI) across two distinct data structure types: categorical-heavy NSL-KDD and continuous-flow-heavy CIC-IDS2017. Fidelity is rigorously assessed through three structural metrics (Data Structure, Correlation, and Probability Distribution Difference) to confirm structural realism before evaluating downstream utility. Our results, confirmed over twenty independent runs (N=20), demonstrate that GAN-based models (CTGAN, CopulaGAN) exhibit superior architectural robustness, consistently achieving the optimal balance of statistical fidelity and practical utility. Conversely, the framework exposes critical failure modes, i.e., statistical methods compromise structural fidelity for utility (Compromised fidelity), and modern iterative architectures, such as Diffusion Models, face prohibitive computational barriers, rendering them impractical for large-scale security deployment. This contribution provides security practitioners with an evidence-based guide for mitigating architectural failures, thereby setting a benchmark for reliable and scalable synthetic data deployment in adaptive security solutions.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_16326
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Architectural Selection Framework for Synthetic Network Traffic: Quantifying the Fidelity-Utility Trade-off
Ammara, Dure Adan
Ding, Jianguo
Tutschku, Kurt
Cryptography and Security
The fidelity and utility of synthetic network traffic are critically compromised by architectural mismatch across heterogeneous network datasets and prevalent scalability failure. This study addresses this challenge by establishing an Architectural Selection Framework that empirically quantifies how data structure compatibility dictates the optimal fidelity-utility trade-off. We systematically evaluate twelve generative architectures (both non-AI and AI) across two distinct data structure types: categorical-heavy NSL-KDD and continuous-flow-heavy CIC-IDS2017. Fidelity is rigorously assessed through three structural metrics (Data Structure, Correlation, and Probability Distribution Difference) to confirm structural realism before evaluating downstream utility. Our results, confirmed over twenty independent runs (N=20), demonstrate that GAN-based models (CTGAN, CopulaGAN) exhibit superior architectural robustness, consistently achieving the optimal balance of statistical fidelity and practical utility. Conversely, the framework exposes critical failure modes, i.e., statistical methods compromise structural fidelity for utility (Compromised fidelity), and modern iterative architectures, such as Diffusion Models, face prohibitive computational barriers, rendering them impractical for large-scale security deployment. This contribution provides security practitioners with an evidence-based guide for mitigating architectural failures, thereby setting a benchmark for reliable and scalable synthetic data deployment in adaptive security solutions.
title Architectural Selection Framework for Synthetic Network Traffic: Quantifying the Fidelity-Utility Trade-off
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.16326