Characterization of Encrypted and VPN Traffic using Time-related Features

Gerard Draper-Gil, Arash Habibi Lashkari, Mohammad Saiful Islam Mamun, Ali A. Ghorbani

2016

Abstract

Traffic characterization is one of the major challenges in today’s security industry. The continuous evolution and generation of new applications and services, together with the expansion of encrypted communications makes it a difficult task. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are an example of encrypted communication service that is becoming popular, as method for bypassing censorship as well as accessing services that are geographically locked. In this paper, we study the effectiveness of flow-based time-related features to detect VPN traffic and to characterize encrypted traffic into different categories, according to the type of traffic e.g., browsing, streaming, etc. We use two different well-known machine learning techniques (C4.5 and KNN) to test the accuracy of our features. Our results show high accuracy and performance, confirming that time-related features are good classifiers for encrypted traffic characterization.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Draper-Gil G., Lashkari A., Mamun M. and A. Ghorbani A. (2016). Characterization of Encrypted and VPN Traffic using Time-related Features . In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy - Volume 1: ICISSP, ISBN 978-989-758-167-0, pages 407-414. DOI: 10.5220/0005740704070414

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icissp16,
author={Gerard Draper-Gil and Arash Habibi Lashkari and Mohammad Saiful Islam Mamun and Ali A. Ghorbani},
title={Characterization of Encrypted and VPN Traffic using Time-related Features},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy - Volume 1: ICISSP,},
year={2016},
pages={407-414},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0005740704070414},
isbn={978-989-758-167-0},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy - Volume 1: ICISSP,
TI - Characterization of Encrypted and VPN Traffic using Time-related Features
SN - 978-989-758-167-0
AU - Draper-Gil G.
AU - Lashkari A.
AU - Mamun M.
AU - A. Ghorbani A.
PY - 2016
SP - 407
EP - 414
DO - 10.5220/0005740704070414