Stacking Ensemble-based XSS Attack Detection Strategy Using Classification Algorithms

Abstract

The accessibility of the internet and mobile platforms has risen dramatically due to digital technology innovations. Web applications have opened up a variety of market possibilities by supplying consumers with a wide variety of digital technologies that benefit from high accessibility and functionality. Around the same time, web application protection continues to be an important challenge on the internet, and security must be taken seriously in order to secure confidential data. The threat is caused by inadequate validation of user input information, software developed without strict adherence to safety standards, vulnerability of reusable software libraries, software weakness, and so on. Through abusing a website's vulnerability, introduers are manipulating the user's information in order to exploit it for their own benefit. Then introduers inject their own malicious code, stealing passwords, manipulating user activities, and infringing on customers' privacy. As a result, information is leaked, applications malfunction, confidential data is accessed, etc. To mitigate the aforementioned issues, stacking ensemble based classifier model for Cross-site scripting (XSS) attack detection is proposed. Furthermore, the stacking ensembles technique is used in combination with different machine learning classification algorithms like k-Means, Random Forest and Decision Tree as base-learners to reliably detect XSS attack. Logistic Regression is used as meta-learner to predict the attack with greater accuracy. The classification algorithms in stacking model explore the problem in their own way and its results are given as input to the meta-learner to make final prediction, thus improving the overall detection accuracy of XSS attack in stacking than the individual models. The simulation findings demonstrate that the proposed model detects XSS attack successfully.