Aasim Zafar

Work place: Department of computer science, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, 202002, India

E-mail: azafar.cs@amu.ac.in

Website:

Research Interests:

Biography

Prof. Aasim Zafar is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh, India. He holds a Master's degree in Computer Science and Applications and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Aligarh Muslim University. With over 32 years of teaching, research, and administrative experience at national and international levels, Prof. Zafar has published over 100 research papers in reputed international journals and conferences and has guided 11 PhD scholars. His research interests include Mobile Ad hoc and Sensor Networks, Image Processing and Video Analytics, Information Retrieval, E-Systems, Cybersecurity, Virtual Learning Environments, Neuro-Fuzzy and Soft Computing, and Software Engineering. He served as Chairperson/Head of the Department of Computer Science from January 2021 to January 2024 and is currently the Registrar of Aligarh Muslim University. He has been actively involved in ICT infrastructure development and serves as UGC SWAYAM Coordinator, Coordinator of the IGNOU Study Centre at AMU, and Convener of the University Website Committee.

Author Articles
Adversarial Transferability in AI-based Network Intrusion Detection: A Comparative Study of ANN and CNN Models

By Aasim Zafar Shazra Wali Sheikh Burhan ul Haque

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijitcs.2026.04.11, Pub. Date: 8 Aug. 2026

Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) play a vital role in modern cybersecurity by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in particular deep learning (DL) and machine learning (ML) to detect and mitigate malicious activities. However, these AI-driven systems are highly vulnerable to adversarial attacks, where small, imperceptible perturbations in input data can deceive models and significantly reduce detection accuracy. This raises critical concerns about the security and reliability of intrusion detection, especially in real-world scenarios where attackers exploit adversarial transferability to bypass defenses. This research investigates the threat posed by black-box adversarial attacks via surrogate models, focusing on the ability of adversarial examples to transfer across different architectures. This study simulates real-world adversarial threats, demonstrating how attacks crafted on one model can effectively deceive another, compromising NIDS security.  A comparative study is conducted on two widely used AI models: an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), both trained on the CICIDS 2019 dataset. The study evaluates the robustness of these models against two gradient-based adversarial attack methods, Fast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM) and Projected Gradient Descent (PGD), to determine their susceptibility under black box adversarial conditions. Experimental results indicate that CNN-based NIDS are more vulnerable to adversarial attacks than ANN-based models, with adversarial examples successfully transferring across architectures. These findings highlight the critical risks associated with adversarial transferability, underscoring the need for enhanced security measures to strengthen AI-driven intrusion detection systems against evolving cyber threats.

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