IAES International Journal of Artificial Intelligence (IJ-AI)
Vol 15, No 4: August 2026

Feature-guided transformer approach for detecting distributed denial of service attacks

Lokeshwaran Kanagaraj (Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr. Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology)
Raguraman Purushothaman (MITS Deemed to be University)
Sathya Subramanian (S.A. Engineering College)
Durga Devi Saravanan (Vel Tech High Tech Dr. Rangarajan Dr. Sakunthala Engineering College)
Komal Kumar Napa (Saveetha Engineering College)
Cornelius Karunakaran (RMK College of Engineering and Technology)
Billa Manindhar (Koneru Lakshmaiah University)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Aug 2026

Abstract

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks continues to pose serious risks to modern networks, with their growing intensity making early detection both critical and challenging. Conventional machine learning (ML) models often struggle with the nonlinear and highly dynamic nature of attack traffic, which motivates the use of advanced architectures. In this study investigate a transformer-based classifier for DDoS detection on the CIC-DDoS2019 dataset. The workflow included preprocessing, feature scaling, and domain-guided feature selection. Logistic regression (LR) was employed as a baseline, achieving 92.1% accuracy and F1-score of 0.90, thereby revealing the limitations of linear models. The transformer, after hyperparameter tuning and 5-fold cross-validation, reached an average accuracy of 99.95% with precision, recall, and F1-scores all above 99.9%. The model demonstrated stable convergence and generalization across folds. These results highlight the strength of attention mechanisms in capturing feature dependencies, while also pointing to future directions such as real-time deployment, explainability, and resilience to zero-day attacks.

Copyrights © 2026






Journal Info

Abbrev

IJAI

Publisher

Subject

Computer Science & IT Engineering

Description

IAES International Journal of Artificial Intelligence (IJ-AI) publishes articles in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The scope covers all artificial intelligence area and its application in the following topics: neural networks; fuzzy logic; simulated biological evolution algorithms (like ...