Distributed Denial of Service Attack Detection in IoT Networks using Deep Learning and Feature Fusion: A Review

Abstract

The explosive growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has led to escalating threats from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Moreover, the scale and heterogeneity of IoT environments pose unique security challenges, and intelligent solutions tailored for the IoT are needed to defend critical infrastructure. The deep learning technique shows great promise because automatic feature learning capabilities are well suited for the complex and high-dimensional data of IoT systems. Additionally, feature fusion approaches have gained traction in enhancing the performance of deep learning models by combining complementary feature sets extracted from multiple data sources. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive literature review focused specifically on deep learning techniques and feature fusion for DDoS attack detection in IoT networks. Studies employing diverse deep learning models and feature fusion techniques are analysed, highlighting key trends and developments in this crucial domain. This review provides several significant contributions, including an overview of various types of DDoS attacks, a comparison of existing surveys, and a thorough examination of recent applications of deep learning and feature fusion for detecting DDoS attacks in IoT networks. Importantly, it highlights the current challenges and limitations of these deep learning techniques based on the literature surveyed. This review concludes by suggesting promising areas for further research to enhance deep learning security solutions, which are specifically tailored to safeguarding the fast-growing IoT infrastructure against DDoS attacks.