A Protocol-Language Model for Network Intrusion (Without Deep Packet Inspection)
Modern network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) are caught in a structural contradiction: the protocols carrying the highest threat intelligence are precisely those encrypted under TLS 1.3 and QUIC, where payload inspection yields nothing. We ask a simpler question -- what if the attack signature is not in the bytes, but in the rhythm? -- and answer it by treating network flows as a language whose grammar is written entirely in L3/L4 packet metadata: length, inter-arrival time, TTL, TCP flags, and hashed port numbers. We present PLM-NIDS, which proves three claims in sequence. (1) The grammar exists and is learnable: a RWKV-4 state-space model trained on 344,232 unlabelled Monday flows ...
| Authors | Vivek Kumar Sharma |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CR |
| Published | 29 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 29 May 2026 |
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