Swarm intelligence in intrusion detection: A survey

Abstract

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) have nowadays become a necessary component of almost every security infrastructure. So far, many different approaches have been followed in order to increase the efficiency of IDS. Swarm Intelligence (SI), a relatively new bio-inspired family of methods, seeks inspiration in the behavior of swarms of insects or other animals. After applied in other fields with success SI started to gather the interest of researchers working in the field of intrusion detection. In this paper we explore the reasons that led to the application of SI in intrusion detection, and present SI methods that have been used for constructing IDS. A major contribution of this work is also a detailed comparison of several SI-based IDS in terms of efficiency. This gives a clear idea of which solution is more appropriate for each particular case. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.