A Context-Aware ZTNA Framework with eBPF/XDP Policy Enforcement and Machine-Learning-Based Trust Evaluation for Campus Networks

University networks host heterogeneous users, endpoints, access locations, and services, so access decisions cannot rely solely on identity information. This work proposes the Context-Aware Dynamic Trust Zero Trust Network Access (CADT-ZTNA) framework, integrating log-based risk classification with an eBPF/XDP-assisted policy enforcement design. We analyzed 113,964 campus security records collected over 30 days: 94,012 actor logs fed the supervised classifier, while 19,952 vendor logs were set aside for separate analysis. Using a chronological train–validation–test split, XGBoost reached a test ROC-AUC of 0.9808, AP of 0.8740 and F1 of 0.8892. Random Forest delivered marginally better ROC-AUC (0.9834) and AP (0.8887). Ablation results highlight the role of temporal behavioral features: removing the temporal feature group reduced ROC-AUC from 0.9808 to 0.9056 and AP from 0.8740 to 0.1869. Removing only user_time_gap reduced AP to 0.6849 and F1 to 0.7676. As 99.15% of positive samples are dormant-account login events, the reported classification performance reflects discrimination against these predefined operational security labels, rather than detection of independently verified real-world malicious activity.

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Publication Details

Journal
Applied Sciences
Published
2026-11-11
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/app162211157
Primary Topic
Network Security and Intrusion Detection
Type
article
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0.00
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article

A Context-Aware ZTNA Framework with eBPF/XDP Policy Enforcement and Machine-Learning-Based Trust Evaluation for Campus Networks

Chen Liu, Ying Zhu, Li Zhu, Xiaojuan Cai
Applied Sciences
Network Security and Intrusion Detection
article

A Context-Aware ZTNA Framework with eBPF/XDP Policy Enforcement and Machine-Learning-Based Trust Evaluation for Campus Networks

Chen Liu, Ying Zhu, Li Zhu, Xiaojuan Cai
article en

Abstract

University networks host heterogeneous users, endpoints, access locations, and services, so access decisions cannot rely solely on identity information. This work proposes the Context-Aware Dynamic Trust Zero Trust Network Access (CADT-ZTNA) framework, integrating log-based risk classification with an eBPF/XDP-assisted policy enforcement design. We analyzed 113,964 campus security records collected over 30 days: 94,012 actor logs fed the supervised classifier, while 19,952 vendor logs were set aside for separate analysis. Using a chronological train–validation–test split, XGBoost reached a test ROC-AUC of 0.9808, AP of 0.8740 and F1 of 0.8892. Random Forest delivered marginally better ROC-AUC (0.9834) and AP (0.8887). Ablation results highlight the role of temporal behavioral features: removing the temporal feature group reduced ROC-AUC from 0.9808 to 0.9056 and AP from 0.8740 to 0.1869. Removing only user_time_gap reduced AP to 0.6849 and F1 to 0.7676. As 99.15% of positive samples are dormant-account login events, the reported classification performance reflects discrimination against these predefined operational security labels, rather than detection of independently verified real-world malicious activity.

Applied SciencesVol. 16(22)
Xi'an Jiaotong University (CN)
Network Security and Intrusion Detection
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