Authors :
Nabeela Temitayo Adebola; Williams Ezebuilo Eze; Kamoru Emmanuel Umoru; Jamiu Akande; Nuhu Ezra
Volume/Issue :
Volume 11 - 2026, Issue 3 - March
Google Scholar :
https://tinyurl.com/ypajf5jx
Scribd :
https://tinyurl.com/4y267hfv
DOI :
https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/26mar324
Note : A published paper may take 4-5 working days from the publication date to appear in PlumX Metrics, Semantic Scholar, and ResearchGate.
Abstract :
Security Information and Event Management systems are still at the core of threat monitoring in enterprises, but
their rule-based detection methodology is mostly static in nature and always in need of manual tuning. As the nature of
cyber-attacks becomes increasingly sophisticated, the complexity of the operating environment also increases, leading to a
degradation in the accuracy of the rule-based methodology, with false positives and false negatives rising significantly.
Recent studies show that adaptive learning methodologies can improve the accuracy of anomaly-based detection systems in
a dynamic operating environment. Reinforcement learning is a methodology in which a learning agent learns through its
interactions with its operating environment and improves its decision-making capabilities through a series of iterations. This
research proposes a reinforcement learning-based framework for the continuous improvement of cyber threat detection
rules in Security Information and Event Management systems. A reinforcement learning agent learns from the outcomes of
the alerts generated in the system, the feedback from the Security Operations Center, and the threat intelligence available
in the system to improve the thresholds and correlation values in real time for the rule-based methodology. This research
uses benchmark intrusion datasets to evaluate the proposed methodology and compares its performance with static rulebased systems to show the improvement in accuracy and a reduction in false positives generated in the system.
Keywords :
Reinforcement Learning, SIEM, Continuous Monitoring, False Positives, SOC Automation, Adaptive Cyber Defense.
References :
- G. Apruzzese, M. Colajanni, L. Ferretti, and M. Marchetti, “Addressing adversarial drift in intrusion detection systems,” IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 2617–2631, 2021.
- A. S. Aref, H. S. Hamza, and M. A. Hammad, “Reinforcement learning-based intrusion detection: A survey,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 184379–184394, 2020.
- R. S. Sutton and A. G. Barto, Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction, 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2018.
- Y. Lin, X. Liu, and J. Zhang, “Deep reinforcement learning for cybersecurity defense: A survey,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 1016–1043, 2021
- K. Scarfone and P. Mell, “Guide to intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS),” NIST Special Publication 800-94, 2007.
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- V. Mnih et al., “Human-level control through deep reinforcement learning,” Nature, vol. 518, no. 7540, pp. 529–533, 2015.
- M. L. Puterman, Markov Decision Processes: Discrete Stochastic Dynamic Programming. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley, 1994.
- C. Gates and C. Taylor, “challenging the anomaly detection paradigm” in proc. ACM Workshop New Security Paradigms, 2006.
- J. Gama et al., “A survey on concept drift adaptation” ACM computing surveys, vol. 46, no. 4, 2014.
- S. Minku and X. Yao, “DNN ensembles for dealing with concept drift” IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Engineering, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 619-633, 2012.
- Ankit Thakkar and Ritika Lohiya, “A review of the advancement in intrusion detection datasets” precedia computer science 167 (2020) 636-645
Security Information and Event Management systems are still at the core of threat monitoring in enterprises, but
their rule-based detection methodology is mostly static in nature and always in need of manual tuning. As the nature of
cyber-attacks becomes increasingly sophisticated, the complexity of the operating environment also increases, leading to a
degradation in the accuracy of the rule-based methodology, with false positives and false negatives rising significantly.
Recent studies show that adaptive learning methodologies can improve the accuracy of anomaly-based detection systems in
a dynamic operating environment. Reinforcement learning is a methodology in which a learning agent learns through its
interactions with its operating environment and improves its decision-making capabilities through a series of iterations. This
research proposes a reinforcement learning-based framework for the continuous improvement of cyber threat detection
rules in Security Information and Event Management systems. A reinforcement learning agent learns from the outcomes of
the alerts generated in the system, the feedback from the Security Operations Center, and the threat intelligence available
in the system to improve the thresholds and correlation values in real time for the rule-based methodology. This research
uses benchmark intrusion datasets to evaluate the proposed methodology and compares its performance with static rulebased systems to show the improvement in accuracy and a reduction in false positives generated in the system.
Keywords :
Reinforcement Learning, SIEM, Continuous Monitoring, False Positives, SOC Automation, Adaptive Cyber Defense.