Binary Image-Based Intrusion Detection for Operational Technology Networks: Extending the SPHBI Methodology from IoT to Modbus TCP

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Omar, Aamir
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Omar, Aamir
author_facet Omar, Aamir
contents This paper extends the Single Packet Header Binary Image (SPHBI) intrusion detection methodology from IoT to Modbus TCP, evaluating five approaches spanning a gradient of protocol depth on the CIC Modbus 2023 dataset (11.4 million packets, eight detectable attack types). TCP/IP headers alone achieve only 51.8% binary accuracy, confirming that header-level heterogeneity exploited in IoT traffic is absent in uniform SCADA environments. Adding eight bytes of application-layer information improves binary accuracy to 98.1% with just 63 parameters, directly relevant to per-packet classification on resource-constrained OT edge devices. The best-performing approach achieves 94.4% +/- 2.2pp multiclass accuracy across nine classes (95% CI [92.9%, 95.9%], 10 seeds) with 56,873 parameters, roughly 430 times fewer than comparable ResNet50-based approaches. Per-class recall analysis shows seven of eight detectable attack types identified with recall above 94%, while replay attacks remain structurally undetectable by any single-packet method.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_04250
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Binary Image-Based Intrusion Detection for Operational Technology Networks: Extending the SPHBI Methodology from IoT to Modbus TCP
Omar, Aamir
Cryptography and Security
Networking and Internet Architecture
I.2.6; I.5.1; C.2.0
This paper extends the Single Packet Header Binary Image (SPHBI) intrusion detection methodology from IoT to Modbus TCP, evaluating five approaches spanning a gradient of protocol depth on the CIC Modbus 2023 dataset (11.4 million packets, eight detectable attack types). TCP/IP headers alone achieve only 51.8% binary accuracy, confirming that header-level heterogeneity exploited in IoT traffic is absent in uniform SCADA environments. Adding eight bytes of application-layer information improves binary accuracy to 98.1% with just 63 parameters, directly relevant to per-packet classification on resource-constrained OT edge devices. The best-performing approach achieves 94.4% +/- 2.2pp multiclass accuracy across nine classes (95% CI [92.9%, 95.9%], 10 seeds) with 56,873 parameters, roughly 430 times fewer than comparable ResNet50-based approaches. Per-class recall analysis shows seven of eight detectable attack types identified with recall above 94%, while replay attacks remain structurally undetectable by any single-packet method.
title Binary Image-Based Intrusion Detection for Operational Technology Networks: Extending the SPHBI Methodology from IoT to Modbus TCP
topic Cryptography and Security
Networking and Internet Architecture
I.2.6; I.5.1; C.2.0
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.04250