A Novel Lightweight Explainable Multilayer Adaptive RNN-Based Intrusion Detection Framework

A rapid increase in the instances of cyberattacks has been observed with the expanding digitization. This leads to an urgent and critical need for developing robust intrusion detection systems (IDS) which can identify the occurrences of malicious activities within the network traffic. The present work proposes a novel, explainable, multilayer, lightweight adaptive IDS based on a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). The purpose of this proposed IDS is to improve threat detection capabilities, especially low frequency high severe attack. The performance of the proposed IDS is evaluated using the UNR-IDD dataset. The network traffic is classified into normal and attack categories to assess the effectiveness of the proposed IDS. Two separate IDS models are developed. Model A is used to detect attacks on the basis of the frequency of the attacks, and Model B detects threats based on the severity of the attacks. Through the layered approach, the overall detection accuracy of 95.7% is achieved in Model A, and 97.5% is obtained in Model B. The present work highlights that the proposed IDS shows a remarkable improvement in the detection of less frequent severe attacks in comparison to existing IDS. The comparative result analysis of RNN-based IDS with Machine Learning models such as LR, Naïve Bayes, Cat Boost, Random Forest and Multilayer Perceptron models shows RNN-based IDS has outperformed the Machine Learning models. Explainable AI (XAI), the SHAP method is used for better interpretation of the proposed decisions. XAI helps to identify the network traffic that can influence predictions and detect potential biases. It also helps researchers and practitioners to validate model behaviour and establish trust in the system’s outputs.

@article{Srivastav2026,
  title     = {A Novel Lightweight Explainable Multilayer Adaptive RNN-Based Intrusion Detection Framework},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {17},
  number    = {2},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Nidhi Srivastav and Rajiv Singh},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2026.0170222},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2026.0170222}
}