Unified hybrid quantum classical neural network framework for detecting distributed denial of service and Android mobile malware attacks

Abstract The rise of advanced networking and mobile technologies has improved flexibility in Software Defined Networking (SDN) management and mobile ecosystems but it has also introduced vulnerabilities like Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and Android malware. In this research, we propose a Hybrid Quantum Classical Neural Network (HQCNN) framework that operates with a Dressed Quantum Circuit (DQC) to achieve efficient detection and classification of threats. The input pipeline of the HQCNN integrates Wavelet Transforms based feature pre-processing, Convolutional Neural Network based feature extraction, Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) for dimensionality reduction, and quantum layers for enhanced classification with less computational complexity. Experiments were conducted on the SDN DDoS Attack Dataset and the CCCS-CIC-AndMal2020 Static Dataset. Two different model variants were devised for binary and multiclass classification problems addressing various cybersecurity issues. The binary HQCNN model for SDN-based DDoS detection was implemented on AWS Braket’s real Quantum Processing Unit (QPU), achieving 99.86% accuracy, 99.85% precision, 100% recall, and a 99.88% F1-score, thereby outperforming the classical Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The multiclass HQCNN, on the other hand, attains accuracy of 93.56%, 94.38%, and 95.13% on the 15-class, 14-class, and 12-class versions of CCCS-CIC-AndMal2020 Static, respectively, hence outperforms all existing methods. These results show that HQCNN is efficient, scalable, and very much applicable in cybersecurity, validating its real-world use effectiveness applicability in threat detection.