Adversarial Defense in Cybersecurity: A Systematic Review of GANs for Threat Detection and Mitigation

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Ndayipfukamiye, Tharcisse, Ding, Jianguo, Sarwatt, Doreen Sebastian, Philipo, Adamu Gaston, Ning, Huansheng
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Ndayipfukamiye, Tharcisse
Ding, Jianguo
Sarwatt, Doreen Sebastian
Philipo, Adamu Gaston
Ning, Huansheng
author_facet Ndayipfukamiye, Tharcisse
Ding, Jianguo
Sarwatt, Doreen Sebastian
Philipo, Adamu Gaston
Ning, Huansheng
contents Machine learning-based cybersecurity systems are highly vulnerable to adversarial attacks, while Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) act as both powerful attack enablers and promising defenses. This survey systematically reviews GAN-based adversarial defenses in cybersecurity (2021--August 31, 2025), consolidating recent progress, identifying gaps, and outlining future directions. Using a PRISMA-compliant systematic literature review protocol, we searched five major digital libraries. From 829 initial records, 185 peer-reviewed studies were retained and synthesized through quantitative trend analysis and thematic taxonomy development. We introduce a four-dimensional taxonomy spanning defensive function, GAN architecture, cybersecurity domain, and adversarial threat model. GANs improve detection accuracy, robustness, and data utility across network intrusion detection, malware analysis, and IoT security. Notable advances include WGAN-GP for stable training, CGANs for targeted synthesis, and hybrid GAN models for improved resilience. Yet, persistent challenges remain such as instability in training, lack of standardized benchmarks, high computational cost, and limited explainability. GAN-based defenses demonstrate strong potential but require advances in stable architectures, benchmarking, transparency, and deployment. We propose a roadmap emphasizing hybrid models, unified evaluation, real-world integration, and defenses against emerging threats such as LLM-driven cyberattacks. This survey establishes the foundation for scalable, trustworthy, and adaptive GAN-powered defenses.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_20411
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Adversarial Defense in Cybersecurity: A Systematic Review of GANs for Threat Detection and Mitigation
Ndayipfukamiye, Tharcisse
Ding, Jianguo
Sarwatt, Doreen Sebastian
Philipo, Adamu Gaston
Ning, Huansheng
Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
Machine learning-based cybersecurity systems are highly vulnerable to adversarial attacks, while Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) act as both powerful attack enablers and promising defenses. This survey systematically reviews GAN-based adversarial defenses in cybersecurity (2021--August 31, 2025), consolidating recent progress, identifying gaps, and outlining future directions. Using a PRISMA-compliant systematic literature review protocol, we searched five major digital libraries. From 829 initial records, 185 peer-reviewed studies were retained and synthesized through quantitative trend analysis and thematic taxonomy development. We introduce a four-dimensional taxonomy spanning defensive function, GAN architecture, cybersecurity domain, and adversarial threat model. GANs improve detection accuracy, robustness, and data utility across network intrusion detection, malware analysis, and IoT security. Notable advances include WGAN-GP for stable training, CGANs for targeted synthesis, and hybrid GAN models for improved resilience. Yet, persistent challenges remain such as instability in training, lack of standardized benchmarks, high computational cost, and limited explainability. GAN-based defenses demonstrate strong potential but require advances in stable architectures, benchmarking, transparency, and deployment. We propose a roadmap emphasizing hybrid models, unified evaluation, real-world integration, and defenses against emerging threats such as LLM-driven cyberattacks. This survey establishes the foundation for scalable, trustworthy, and adaptive GAN-powered defenses.
title Adversarial Defense in Cybersecurity: A Systematic Review of GANs for Threat Detection and Mitigation
topic Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.20411