AdaDoS: Adaptive DoS Attack via Deep Adversarial Reinforcement Learning in SDN

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Shao, Wei, Wang, Yuhao, He, Rongguang, Ahmed, Muhammad Ejaz, Camtepe, Seyit
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Shao, Wei
Wang, Yuhao
He, Rongguang
Ahmed, Muhammad Ejaz
Camtepe, Seyit
author_facet Shao, Wei
Wang, Yuhao
He, Rongguang
Ahmed, Muhammad Ejaz
Camtepe, Seyit
contents Existing defence mechanisms have demonstrated significant effectiveness in mitigating rule-based Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, leveraging predefined signatures and static heuristics to identify and block malicious traffic. However, the emergence of AI-driven techniques presents new challenges to SDN security, potentially compromising the efficacy of existing defence mechanisms. In this paper, we introduce~AdaDoS, an adaptive attack model that disrupt network operations while evading detection by existing DoS-based detectors through adversarial reinforcement learning (RL). Specifically, AdaDoS models the problem as a competitive game between an attacker, whose goal is to obstruct network traffic without being detected, and a detector, which aims to identify malicious traffic. AdaDoS can solve this game by dynamically adjusting its attack strategy based on feedback from the SDN and the detector. Additionally, recognising that attackers typically have less information than defenders, AdaDoS formulates the DoS-like attack as a partially observed Markov decision process (POMDP), with the attacker having access only to delay information between attacker and victim nodes. We address this challenge with a novel reciprocal learning module, where the student agent, with limited observations, enhances its performance by learning from the teacher agent, who has full observational capabilities in the SDN environment. AdaDoS represents the first application of RL to develop DoS-like attack sequences, capable of adaptively evading both machine learning-based and rule-based DoS-like attack detectors.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_20566
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AdaDoS: Adaptive DoS Attack via Deep Adversarial Reinforcement Learning in SDN
Shao, Wei
Wang, Yuhao
He, Rongguang
Ahmed, Muhammad Ejaz
Camtepe, Seyit
Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
Existing defence mechanisms have demonstrated significant effectiveness in mitigating rule-based Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, leveraging predefined signatures and static heuristics to identify and block malicious traffic. However, the emergence of AI-driven techniques presents new challenges to SDN security, potentially compromising the efficacy of existing defence mechanisms. In this paper, we introduce~AdaDoS, an adaptive attack model that disrupt network operations while evading detection by existing DoS-based detectors through adversarial reinforcement learning (RL). Specifically, AdaDoS models the problem as a competitive game between an attacker, whose goal is to obstruct network traffic without being detected, and a detector, which aims to identify malicious traffic. AdaDoS can solve this game by dynamically adjusting its attack strategy based on feedback from the SDN and the detector. Additionally, recognising that attackers typically have less information than defenders, AdaDoS formulates the DoS-like attack as a partially observed Markov decision process (POMDP), with the attacker having access only to delay information between attacker and victim nodes. We address this challenge with a novel reciprocal learning module, where the student agent, with limited observations, enhances its performance by learning from the teacher agent, who has full observational capabilities in the SDN environment. AdaDoS represents the first application of RL to develop DoS-like attack sequences, capable of adaptively evading both machine learning-based and rule-based DoS-like attack detectors.
title AdaDoS: Adaptive DoS Attack via Deep Adversarial Reinforcement Learning in SDN
topic Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.20566