Enhancing Encrypted Traffic Classification with Deep Adaptation Networks

Network traffic management is crucial in Computer Networks and the Internet of Things. Indeed, classifying network traffic is the foundation for enhancing the quality of management mechanisms. However, traditional traffic classification methods, such as port-based, deep packet inspection, and statistic-based, are limited in identifying new encrypted traffic characteristics. Deep Learning-based classification approaches that consider packet-based features have been explored to address this challenge. Along with other deep learning methods, Transfer Learning, where a new model can inherit knowledge previously learned by a base model, is commonly used to increase classification performance in low data resources. Unfortunately, feature transferability may decline in transfer learning. This paper proposes an encrypted traffic classification mechanism that leverages the Deep Adaptation Network architecture with Mean Embedding Test to overcome this limitation. Our experimental results show that the proposed mechanism surpasses existing benchmarks’ accuracy and can classify encrypted traffic in real-time.