REAL-IoT: Characterizing GNN Intrusion Detection Robustness under Practical Adversarial Attack

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhan, Zhonghao, Zhou, Huichi, Haddadi, Hamed
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhan, Zhonghao
Zhou, Huichi
Haddadi, Hamed
author_facet Zhan, Zhonghao
Zhou, Huichi
Haddadi, Hamed
contents Graph Neural Network (GNN)-based network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) are often evaluated on single datasets, limiting their ability to generalize under distribution drift. Furthermore, their adversarial robustness is typically assessed using synthetic perturbations that lack realism. This measurement gap leads to an overestimation of GNN-based NIDS resilience. To address the limitations, we propose \textbf{REAL-IoT}, a comprehensive framework for robustness evaluation of GNN-based NIDS in IoT environments. Our framework presents a methodology that creates a unified dataset from canonical datasets to assess generalization under drift. In addition, it features a novel intrusion dataset collected from a physical IoT testbed, which captures network traffic and attack scenarios under real-world settings. Furthermore, using REAL-IoT, we explore the usage of Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze network data and mitigate the impact of adversarial examples by filtering suspicious flows. Our evaluations using REAL-IoT reveal performance drops in GNN models compared to results from standard benchmarks, quantifying their susceptibility to drift and realistic attacks. We also demonstrate the potential of LLM-based filtering to enhance robustness. These findings emphasize the necessity of realistic threat modeling and rigorous measurement practices for developing resilient IoT intrusion detection systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_10836
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle REAL-IoT: Characterizing GNN Intrusion Detection Robustness under Practical Adversarial Attack
Zhan, Zhonghao
Zhou, Huichi
Haddadi, Hamed
Cryptography and Security
Graph Neural Network (GNN)-based network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) are often evaluated on single datasets, limiting their ability to generalize under distribution drift. Furthermore, their adversarial robustness is typically assessed using synthetic perturbations that lack realism. This measurement gap leads to an overestimation of GNN-based NIDS resilience. To address the limitations, we propose \textbf{REAL-IoT}, a comprehensive framework for robustness evaluation of GNN-based NIDS in IoT environments. Our framework presents a methodology that creates a unified dataset from canonical datasets to assess generalization under drift. In addition, it features a novel intrusion dataset collected from a physical IoT testbed, which captures network traffic and attack scenarios under real-world settings. Furthermore, using REAL-IoT, we explore the usage of Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze network data and mitigate the impact of adversarial examples by filtering suspicious flows. Our evaluations using REAL-IoT reveal performance drops in GNN models compared to results from standard benchmarks, quantifying their susceptibility to drift and realistic attacks. We also demonstrate the potential of LLM-based filtering to enhance robustness. These findings emphasize the necessity of realistic threat modeling and rigorous measurement practices for developing resilient IoT intrusion detection systems.
title REAL-IoT: Characterizing GNN Intrusion Detection Robustness under Practical Adversarial Attack
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.10836