Review
Intelligent Techniques for Detecting Network Attacks: Review
and Research Directions
Malak Aljabri
1,2,
* , Sumayh S. Aljameel
3
, Rami Mustafa A. Mohammad
4
, Sultan H. Almotiri
1
,
Samiha Mirza
2
, Fatima M. Anis
2
, Menna Aboulnour
2
, Dorieh M. Alomari
5
, Dina H. Alhamed
5
and Hanan S. Altamimi
2
Citation: Aljabri, M.; Aljameel, S.S.;
Mohammad, R.M.A.; Almotiri, S.H.;
Mirza, S.; Anis, F.M.; Aboulnour, M.;
Alomari, D.M.; Alhamed, D.H.;
Altamimi, H.S. Intelligent Techniques
for Detecting Network Attacks:
Review and Research Directions.
Sensors 2021, 21, 7070. https://
doi.org/10.3390/s21217070
Academic Editors: Alexios Mylonas
and Nikolaos Pitropakis
Received: 12 July 2021
Accepted: 21 October 2021
Published: 25 October 2021
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4.0/).
1
Computer Science Department, College of Computer and Information Systems, Umm Al-Qura University,
Makkah 21955, Saudi Arabia; shmotiri@uqu.edu.sa
2
SAUDI ARAMCO Cybersecurity Chair, Department of Computer Science, College of Computer Science and
Information Technology, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box 1982,
Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia; 2180007084@iau.edu.sa (S.M.); 2180007105@iau.edu.sa (F.M.A.);
2180007190@iau.edu.sa (M.A.); 2180002223@iau.edu.sa (H.S.A.)
3
Department of Computer Science, College of Computer Science and Information Technology, Imam
Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box 1982, Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia; saljameel@iau.edu.sa
4
Department of Computer Information Systems, College of Computer Science and Information Technology,
Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box 1982, Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia;
rmmohammad@iau.edu.sa
5
SAUDI ARAMCO Cybersecurity Chair, Department of Computer Engineering, College of Computer Science
and Information Technology, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box 1982,
Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia; 2180007089@iau.edu.sa (D.M.A.); 2180007125@iau.edu.sa (D.H.A.)
* Correspondence: mssjabri@uqu.edu.sa or msaljabri@iau.edu.sa
Abstract:
The significant growth in the use of the Internet and the rapid development of network
technologies are associated with an increased risk of network attacks. Network attacks refer to
all types of unauthorized access to a network including any attempts to damage and disrupt the
network, often leading to serious consequences. Network attack detection is an active area of research
in the community of cybersecurity. In the literature, there are various descriptions of network attack
detection systems involving various intelligent-based techniques including machine learning (ML)
and deep learning (DL) models. However, although such techniques have proved useful within
specific domains, no technique has proved useful in mitigating all kinds of network attacks. This
is because some intelligent-based approaches lack essential capabilities that render them reliable
systems that are able to confront different types of network attacks. This was the main motivation
behind this research, which evaluates contemporary intelligent-based research directions to address
the gap that still exists in the field. The main components of any intelligent-based system are the
training datasets, the algorithms, and the evaluation metrics; these were the main benchmark criteria
used to assess the intelligent-based systems included in this research article. This research provides
a rich source of references for scholars seeking to determine their scope of research in this field.
Furthermore, although the paper does present a set of suggestions about future inductive directions,
it leaves the reader free to derive additional insights about how to develop intelligent-based systems
to counter current and future network attacks.
Keywords: network security; network attacks; attack detection; machine learning; deep learning
1. Introduction and Background
Rapid advancements in technology have made the Internet easily accessible and it is
now actively used by the majority of people for a plethora of professional and personal tasks.
Various sensitive activities including communication, information exchange, and business
transactions are carried out using the Internet. The Internet helps foster connection and
communication, but the integrity and confidentiality of these connections and information
Sensors 2021, 21, 7070. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21217070 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
